


lull my seething blood

by qunsio



Series: lull [1]
Category: Sense8 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Extramarital Affairs, F/M, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-25
Updated: 2016-11-13
Packaged: 2018-04-10 19:54:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 27,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4405343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qunsio/pseuds/qunsio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kala meets an unfortunate someone at an unfortunate time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> “How often do I lull my seething blood to rest, for you have never seen anything so unsteady, so uncertain, as this heart.” ― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, _The Sorrows of Young Werther_

Kala sets her tea on the table, supposing it was too much to hope to be served halfway decent chai when all she did was wander into the café nearest to her hotel. She cradles the mug loosely in one hand, and fiddles with the tail of her teabag with the other. Perhaps if she takes a break from the tea, adjusts her expectations, it will be soothing rather than thin and bland.

Her mind is restless, and the book she brought with her holds no appeal. She loses time staring out the window, watching people pass by huddled together in twos and threes under coats and umbrellas to avoid the pelting rain. A laughing couple bursts into the café, giddy and in love. They remove each other’s raincoats as they stumble towards the counter. Kala twists her wedding band around her finger, trying to familiarize herself with the shape and weight of it. She tastes her tea again, and everything about it is more bitter than before.

A man runs in, banging the door against the wall in his haste. He strips off his jacket and cap in hurried motions, dumps them on the floor, and, for reasons unknown, rushes into the seat across from Kala. “Hallo liebling,” he says through panting breaths, “Wie geht’s?” He adjusts himself in his seat and his posture is suddenly practiced and natural, as if he’s been sitting with her for hours rather than seconds.

“Um. Do you speak English?”

“Yes.” He grins. “Hello.”

She pauses, expecting him to expand more, to explain himself, but he just gazes back at her. “And who are you?” she asks.

Another man bursts into the door. His head swivels on his spindly neck as he surveys the café. Kala wonders if this kind of excitement is typical for Berlin cafés. She wonders if this man is looking for the man at her table. Probably. The man before her seems unchanged; he simply reaches forward to examine the book Kala left lying on the table. After several long seconds, the man at the door retracts his head and swerves back onto the street, jogging past the window.

The twos and threes inside the café huddle together. They shoot nervous glances at Kala and her unfortunate guest as they whisper amongst themselves. Kala does her best to keep the mild panic out of her voice and says, “I don’t know what exactly is going on, but would you please leave?”

“A few minutes longer.” He sets the book back down in front of her. His fingers are firm around the flimsy paperback. He’s broad and square all over, but his face is soft around his pale blue eyes. Her heart flutters curiously when he quirks a smile at her and asks, “What are you doing here alone anyway?”

“I was reading,” she lies, “clearly.”

“No you weren’t,” he says. She does not dignify that with a response, so he continues, “Lone tourists are rare, especially when they’re married. Where’s your husband?”

“How did you-?” He points at his empty ring finger, and the weight of the metal makes itself known again. She pulls her hands under the table, out of sight. “Raj—my husband is away. But he could be here faster than you could try anything.”

“Sure,” he says. “What are you doing in Berlin?”

“It’s our honeymoon,” she says defensively. “We’re travelling Europe.”

The man’s eyebrows raise at that, and he asks with apparently genuine concern, “Your husband left you alone on your honeymoon?”

Kala splutters, “He—well—there were extenuating circumstances.” His eyebrows raise higher. She continues, “His father was _attacked_ , he needs to take care of him, and handle the business matters, of course, while he is injured. They are both very important.”

“They both left you here.”

“It was—there were—we spent a lot of money on this trip, and I took many vacation days, and Rajan’s Auntie is staying in my room and I—” She stops, reconsiders what she’s doing, and says, “Oh, I don’t like you.” For some reason, the man grins in return.

A group of people run by the window at top speed, disrupting their absurd moment. A single man lags behind the group and bursts into the café. Everyone inside jumps, even the man in front of her, though he does not turn his face to look at the intruder. With this third invader the café goes quiet, the silence punctuated only by the occasional _drip_ from the coffeemaker.

The man at the door holds his arm in an odd position, with his hand resting in his jacket, just under his armpit. A gun, Kala realizes, he has a gun there. She sits stock still, eyes wide and round. Her hands begin to rise to her mouth without her knowing, and her ring clonks awkwardly against the table on the way up. The man turns his bald head to look at her. He squints, hard, hateful lines etched into the corners of his eyes.

The man in front of Kala takes her hand, his smooth fingers circling hers. Her eyes flick back to him, and she almost yanks her hand back on instinct. “It’s all right,” he murmurs. He lifts her hand to his mouth and brushes his lips against her fingers, not once breaking eye contact. She freezes, confused and strangely settled. Her pulse pounds in her head. The bald man’s gaze slides past them. He takes another step in, looks around once more. A stout garish tattoo reveals itself climbing up his neck as he twists his head away from them. Then, he darts out the door as abruptly as he came in, yelling in German to his coconspirators down the street.

The café explodes into sound and motion as the scattered customers scramble to pack up and leave. The commotion fails to break the spell on Kala and her guest though. The man slowly, slowly returns her hand back to the table. She turns her hand over to look at her palm, examines it. She can’t remember why she didn’t immediately take her hand back.

Her mouth opens and she inexplicably asks, “Are you a fugitive?”

He laughs, says, “Enjoy your tea,” and folds his way into the dispersing crowd.

Kala is hyperaware of her hands; the place he touched her with his mouth tingles, and the grip of her wedding ring snags on her skin.


	2. Chapter 2

Kala has been doing her absolute best not to think about her bizarre café encounter. It’s already been a day since it happened, and this is her honeymoon after all. Whether or not her husband is present, it would be ridiculous to spend so much time obsessing over some other man’s actions. Though perhaps not as ridiculous as what she’s doing now. Kala gets to see the French operatic rendition of _Roméo and Juliette_ , the most romantic story in the most romantic storytelling form Western art has to offer, and she has a spare ticket. She's going by herself. Alone. She has been trying not to get upset or lonely. She tries to think about how lucky she is to be here in Berlin and to have the opportunity to see the show at all, even if everyone who loves her is miles and miles away. She can’t always manage the mindset, but the ache of abandonment is manageable most of the time.

The taxi ride to the opera house is short. She would rather have walked, but she’s wearing a new gown, and during Rajan’s brief call he warned her about dirtying the hem on the city pavement. His playful fussing bothered her at first, but now, now she sits in a high end car with long bolts of fabric draping across her legs in vivid dark green, lace framing her shoulders, and henna still tracing her hands. She feels like a queen.

Tonight, she decides, she will not be lonely. She will be royalty instead. As a girl, she played this game frequently, whenever she felt too small or uncared for. With her prettiest blanket wrapped around her like a sari, she would climb up and down the staircase over and over, surveying her lands with a distant, queenly gaze, absorbing her subjects’ love and assuring them of hers.

If she is alone, it is only because she would not have it any other way. She straightens her back, places a regal hand against her neck. The taxi pulls up to the opera house. She pays the driver and unfolds herself out of the car with all the grace and surety expected of a great ruler. Chin high and eyes hooded, she strides to the entrance, listening to her heeled shoes _clack_ against the pavement as she walks. They must be glad of her presence, she thinks.

“Hey,” someone shouts, “Wait!”

She glances over her shoulder and finds the man from the café half-jogging to reach her. The shock of seeing him again nearly breaks her out of character.

He catches up, panting again, and says, “I swear, I’m not following you.”

His appearance is suspicious, but, surrounded by all these people, not threatening. She decides to work him into the fold of her fantasy, a peasant boy infatuated with his queen. Infusing as much poise and condescension into her voice as possible, she asks, “Then what are you doing here?”

He pauses, takes a half-step back, finally unsure of his welcome. She feels immensely gratified.

The sharper, lankier counterpoint to the man from the café appears beside them, asks, “Wer ist sie?” They are clearly old friends, feeding off of each other’s easy confidence. Her café man’s bravado refreshes and increases tenfold.

“She’s my date to the show,” he says, switching to English.

“No way. You’re seeing this show?” his friend asks.

“He is not,” Kala says. “You are _not_ coming in with me.”

“I know you have an extra ticket. Your husband’s, right?”

The reminder chips at her royal façade, and it hurts her, low in her stomach. She says, “Maybe I’ve already returned it.”

“This place doesn’t let you return,” he says. “And I’ve lost all my tickets. Let me use yours.”

“ _All_ your tickets?” she asks.He winces slightly, like he hadn’t intended to give that away. He must be selling tickets of his own then, either counterfeit or illegal resale. A little thrill rushes through her at getting one over him.

“Come on, you are too lovely to spend another night alone.”

“This is the one on her honeymoon? She’s alone?” the man’s friend asks.

Kala’s face heats up. The conversation has slipped out of her control and her ache is returning, stronger now under the scrutiny of outside acknowledgement. She mutters, “I have to go,” and rushes into the building.

She makes a beeline for the bathroom, washes her hands in cold water and takes deep breaths. Her ring slides up and down in the soapy water, hitting her knuckle and joint, knuckle and joint. The show will begin in five minutes, the loudspeaker announces. Kala stays where she is. She tries to reframe her thinking again, tries not to think anything at all. The loneliness is large now, with the crowds of happy strangers swelling just outside the door. She shrinks the feeling of isolation as best she can, tucks it away, and slowly revives the grace and poise she held earlier.

By the end of the first act Kala feels marginally better. She enters the theater as Romeo spots Juliet leaning against a window frame, and she finds her seat as Romeo describes Juliet’s splendor in a language Kala can’t understand. She leaves her anchors and trappings below her, allows herself to be swept away.

In these early acts, everything about the actors, the stage, and the music is beautiful and foreign and so very much about love. Kala has never seen anything like this, never seen a performance so wholly dedicated to this kind of yearning and affection. Tears fall from her eyes intermittently, and she finally wipes them away with her hand. The man next to her leans towards her. Kala thinks he will offer her a tissue, but instead he whispers, “You like this ‘fated romance’ stuff, huh?” She startles, looks over to find the man from the café.

“Why are you here?” she asks. The desperate loneliness returns and gives her voice a harsh, sad edge.

He takes pause again, his head dipping, and again she feels stupidly pleased about disrupting his cool exterior. He says, “I didn’t mean to upset you.” He places his hand atop hers on the seat rest.

She doesn’t reply, but she doesn’t move her hand away either. The contact is nice. She looks straight ahead, tries to imagine it is Rajan next to her and holding her hand through the show, but the show must be getting to her, because when she tries to imagine her husband all she can hear is French, and all she can see is washed out blond hair, ghostly pink skin, and gentle, pale eyes.

***

When the show ends and the curtains close, Kala is crying outright. Her eyes may be swollen but she is lighter with catharsis. She’s glad she came after all, even without Rajan. She stands to applaud the cast and orchestra as they come out in turns. The man next to her does not stand, but he claps from his seat. Eventually, the curtains fall and the actors leave the stage. When the lights come on, she sits back in her seat to wait for the audience to drain out of the theater. The man waits with her, unmoving.

“I can go, if you want me to,” he says.

She doesn’t know what she wants, so she doesn’t say anything. They sit still and silent for long minutes until the audience members have all left and workers begin to clean up. She likes sitting with him, this peculiar, respectful criminal. He might not be able to keep her husband’s absence out of her thoughts, but he sits with her and he looks at her with a nameless intensity, and that is more than enough for now.

 “Can I walk you home?” he asks. His voice is soft. “It is not always safe to walk alone this late, and I would like to talk with you.”

“I’m going to take a taxi.”

He nods.  “All right,” he says, “What is your name?”

She considers if there’s any risk in telling him, decides she doesn’t care. “Kala.”

“My name is Wolfgang,” he says. She scoffs at that. “It really is. I can show you my ID.”

Kala laughs loud, says, “Don’t worry, I believe you.”

He frowns in suspicion, and his concerned face makes her laugh harder. Wolfgang smiles back soon enough. Wolfgang, her Berlin café fugitive. The lights in the theater turn off abruptly, leaving them in almost complete darkness, and Kala jumps out of her seat in alarm. Wolfgang stands too.

“Listen,” he says, “Can I see you again? Show you around Berlin?”

She will be here in Berlin for three more days and she really would like to see the city from a resident’s perspective. She knows Rajan would not mind, but Rajan’s easy acquiescence troubles her too. Kala stops smiling, tries to piece out Wolfgang’s face in the dark. His smile falters. She can make out Wolfgang’s slack mouth even in the darkness, a dull glint reflecting off his teeth. Strangely, she thinks about pressing her fingers to his lips again, like at the café, only this time pressing until she touches his teeth.

“I don’t think that’s wise,” she says. He nods.

She gets up to leave, and he does not follow.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im sorry this took so long! between the last chapter and this one I moved to another country, which is not conducive to finding time/energy to sit and write. thanks for reading, and thank you for all your lovely comments. hope you enjoy!

“It’s raining, you know, rather hard.”

Wolfgang snaps out of his rain-soaked reverie and looks up. Kala’s there. She is holding an absurdly large black umbrella above her head, but her hair is still wild from rain. He can’t help but smile. Not only have they accidentally run into each other again, but this time _she_ approached him.

“Kala,” he says.

“Aren’t you going to go inside?”

“I like the rain,” he says, “And there’s no reason for me to go in. I’ve already eaten.” He gestures at his plate, empty save for a water logged chunk of bread.

“Well I’m going in,” she says. She turns slowly, eyes on him until the last possible second, and then enters the café.

Wolfgang considers his options, and decides he really has only one. He gets up and follows her in. The warm air inside hits him gradually, seeps into his clothes and skin and slows his movements. The café is crowded with people, but the customers are quiet and unhurried, slowed too by the comfortable heat. He finds Kala in line and walks over, wet denim jeans chafing against his legs the whole way. She was right to pull him indoors.

When he reaches her, she says, “I’m beginning to think I’m cursed.” Her eyebrows are creased with worry and her eyes are unsmiling. Her expression throws him. He goes back in his mind, tries to understand if he missed the cue indicating her discomfort. Perhaps he shouldn’t have come in after her. Maybe he’s being creepy, not charming.

Wolfgang tries, “Do you really believe in fate and love? Like in the show the other night?”

“Yes, I do,” she says. “Do you?”

He’s tempted to say yes, but, “No.”

“ _Tch_ , what a shame,” she says. Her face shifts into a look that is not so uncomfortable, more conspiratorial. “This is our third ‘coincidental’ encounter.”

“You’re right. You know what they say about third times.”

“What do they say?”

“I don’t know. Many things.”

Kala laughs quietly through fingers held over her mouth. She turns to the handwritten menu displayed above the cashier, still smiling. Wolfgang leans over her shoulder to look through the menu with her and offer suggestions. Their position jostles as they move forward in line, and he ends up pressed close to her, murmuring sweets and savories into her hair.

She stutters through an order with his face still near hers, and then marches to a table without looking at him. Wolfgang orders a beer and goes to join her.

Kala’s hand is to her face again, the backs of her fingers pressed to the heat of her cheek. When Wolfgang sits, she jerks her hand away. Her wedding ring scrapes her chin slightly and then hits the table on its way to her lap. The burning in her cheeks has not subsided, judging by her drawn eyebrows and downcast eyes. He wants to make her smile again, or at least divert her attention from whatever makes her frown like that.

A waitress arrives with Wolfgang’s beer. She sets it down in front of him without looking at either of them. He doesn’t want to think about what they look like, together like this, with Kala looking so upset. Her mood shifts so quickly around him. He needs to say something, probably, something to draw her back here, outside of herself. He’s not very good at talking though, and his English was never that strong.

“Isn’t it a little early for beer?” Kala asks.

Wolfgang looks up. She’s smiling, the slightest bit of concern evident in the crease between her eyebrows. He laughs. He drew her out of silence by concerning her with his silence.

“It’s past noon,” he says.

“My question stands.”

“Have you had German beer yet?”

“No, but you’re not—”

“How long have you been in Berlin?”

“Almost a week.”

“And no beer?” he scolds. “Try this one. It’s good.” He pushes it towards her. The waitress swings by and deposits Kala’s food in front of Wolfgang, since Wolfgang’s beer occupies Kala’s place setting. He’s happy to see she ordered the club sandwich, per his recommendation. She eyes the food, but Wolfgang only pulls it towards him. She looks back at the beer.

“I cannot drink all of it,” Kala says.

“Neither can I. Not unless you have some first.”

She heaves a great sigh, like no greater burden has ever been put on her than these few sips of beer. She takes a large sip and makes a frankly hilarious face of disgust as she holds the beer in her mouth. When she swallows at last, she says, “It is so thin and bitter.” She licks her lips. “It tastes a little bit like a tree?”

He laughs. Kala reaches out to take her plate of food from him and pushes the glass towards him.

“So maybe this one's not for you,” he says. “You’ll find your one true beer. It’s fated.”

“You’re just trying to get me drunk.”

“Not here. If you want to really try beers you have to come to Finn’s.”

“You _are_ trying to get me drunk.”

“Eh, it’s a fortunate side effect. Come with me. After you eat?”

“I can’t,” she says. Wolfgang is surprised to find himself disappointed, like he forgot for a moment and truly thought a married woman would accept his invitation to get drinks. “Oh, relax,” she says, and he snaps his attention back to her. “I already have plans today, at 2.”

“Tonight then.”

“Maybe,” she says, fighting a smile.

She eats, and they talk idly about the weather, about God and faith, about interior decorating, and about any and everything else. Kala knows herself well, has thoughts or opinions about everything. Wolfgang’s thoughts differ from hers in a thousand and one ways, but still she asks astute questions and listens attentively when he speaks. He tries to sound smart and funny for her, and it seems to work because her dark eyes stay focused on him. It’s thrilling, to hold her attention so fully, no matter whether he is engaging in pointless banter or dipping into dark, personal matters.

He learns she’s a brilliant scientist. She doesn’t say so outright, but when he tells her a funny childhood anecdote in which he skips school and gets beat up, she returns with a funny childhood anecdote in which she figures out how to make minor explosives with knowledge gained from a children’s chemistry kit and a small amounts of spices and cleaning materials.

Kala actually becomes less animated when she talks about science, her passion manifesting in precise explanations and deliberate hand gestures, like if she can get Wolfgang to understand her experience, he, too, will be swept up in the miracles of biochemistry and the scientific method. Kala’s wide-eyed energy is infectious though, and Wolfgang finds himself interested in chemistry for the first time in his life.

Wolfgang keeps asking, so she continues. Kala talks about her incompetent secondary school tutors, her condescending male peers in uni, and the sharks running the pharmaceuticals business. The waitress drops the check off right about when she catches up to her present work, which, he learns, is for Rajan’s father’s company. He makes a grab for the check while she digs in her purse for her wallet.

“Oh! Don’t do that,” she says.

“I made a lot of money the other night,” he says, sifting through the bills in his wallet, “Let me.”

“I didn’t know ticket sales could be that good.”

“Oh I was up to something a little bigger last night.” He lets his eyes flick to her diamond ring.

Her mouth parts, and she’s silent for a moment. “Regardless. I’m not just saying no to be polite. Do not pay for me.”

He nods and places a single bill on the table. “For the beer. All right?”

She looks closely at him, then she places her own bills on the table.

The weather has cleared up when they get outside, and Kala asks him to walk her to her 2:00 tour.  Wolfgang tries not to let the excitement show on his face as he leads her downtown. He was supposed to have met Felix at the shop almost an hour ago, but he’s sure Felix will understand. He’ll see Felix every day for the rest of his life and he may never see Kala again. She’s peculiar and beautiful and thoughtful, and he wishes he could steal her away from her empty honeymoon, sit down with her and listen to her talk indefinitely.

Without meaning to, he says out loud, “Sometimes you look so sad.”

It catches Kala off-guard, and Wolfgang as well. She looks at her hands, and he at his feet, watching his steps carefully. They’re only a couple blocks away from the start of her tour with, so he mumbles, “It’s at the next big intersection. The red sign. I’ll leave you to your tourist nonsense.”

 “You’re welcome to come with.” She meets his eyes again. “I might be able to dig up a spare ticket. Mine are reserved for husbands, or, barring that, friendly stalkers.”

“I’m not stalking you.”

“Sure,” she says dismissively.

“Stalking involves secrecy,” he says. “And one-sided participation.”

“Mm. So are you coming?”

 He thinks of Felix, and forces himself to say, “I have to meet someone.”

“Probably for the best,” she says.

“Give me your hand,” he says as he digs through his pockets. She lifts her hand warily. The light catches her ring, and Wolfgang notes the setting: intricate gold pieces, a large central diamond, and two tapered baguette stones on either side. He’s learned a lot about diamonds these past weeks, and her ring is most likely Tiffany’s, probably worth around 25.000 euros. He gets antsy twice over, about Kala’s marital status and about Felix’s trade off.

He uncaps his pen with his mouth, and writes slowly so his hand does not tremble. “That’s the address for Finn’s. I’ll be there at 9,” Wolfgang says, already pulling out his phone to call Felix. “See you there.” He turns to go, too anxious to wait for Kala’s response.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warnings for blood and vomit. hmu on[ tumblr ](http://qunsio.tumblr.com/)if you need more details.

In the movies, when someone is shot they tie a belt or a scarf above the wound to keep blood loss to a minimum. Sometimes they press down on the wound. Sometimes they dig the shrapnel out, sometimes they leave it in. Wolfgang doesn’t really know why. Hysterically, he finds himself wishing he spent more time watching medical dramas.

Felix is bleeding from a dozen different places on his chest and still he’s gurgling up blood from his mouth. Wolfgang heaves Felix’s body up to prop it against his own chest, leaves his hands hovering over Felix’s bloody torso. Should he touch him? Should he elevate the wounds? What should he—is he supposed—? Is Felix going to die?

He was foolish to stay in Berlin after what he pulled. He knew Steiner would figure it out. That was part of the appeal, but he was reckless and his slow burning fury didn’t allow him to spare a thought for Felix. He should have seen this coming. He shouldn’t have been so stupid.

Felix hacks a terrible cough, spewing blood onto Wolfgang’s hands. Fuck this. Wolfgang scrambles for his phone, has to clean his hands and wipe the blood off the screen to get the touch screen to recognize him. He’s calling an ambulance, police be damned.

***

Later, after Steiner lopes out of Felix’s hospital room following a series of spectacularly uncreative threats, Wolfgang’s panic and burning hatred fall to pieces. He looks at Felix, lying still and silent with tubing twisting into him. Wolfgang just wants to talk to his best friend, his brother. But Felix isn’t there.

He leaves.

***

Wolfgang’s flat is empty. At first, it’s easy to ignore his hollowed out chest in his rush to prepare the diamonds and weaponry for his meeting with Steiner. He moves with a detached efficiency. His car is packed and he’s ready to go with 45 minutes to spare, meaning he has to deal with being alone for almost an hour. He’s too fidgety to stay in, so he goes out to the driveway. There’s no one to talk to, nothing to do there either. He slides into the driver’s seat, drums his fingers against the wheel. Not enough time to go check on Felix, too much time to leave right away. He can’t idle here though, with nothing but his solitude and regret to occupy his thoughts.

It’s ridiculous, but he wants to talk to Kala. He wants to talk to someone who cares about how important Felix is to him. He needs to say how important it is to him that he gets this next part right. Kala doesn’t know anything about this life he leads, but he wouldn’t need to get into specifics. At the café, Wolfgang told her about his childhood, with his father and his schoolmates, the times he truly needed Felix, and he knows she would listen to him, even if she couldn’t fully understand. Seeing her small frown, hearing her sympathetic “oh,” would be validation enough.

Wolfgang doesn’t know her number. Doesn’t even know her full name.

He scrubs at his face, empties his mind, and starts the car.

 

* * *

 

Kala watches 9:30 come and go from her solitary bar stool, frustrated with herself for looking forward to this, even more frustrated for choosing to come at all, and furious that Wolfgang didn’t show. She is a married woman now, and she has no business meeting handsome men in bars after dark. To think she threaded her eyebrows for this. She drops her loose coins in the tip jar and leaves the bar. She’ll call Rajan tonight instead.

She’s fiddling with her umbrella when she spots a familiar face in the parking lot. Wolfgang sits in his car, clutching his steering wheel with a white-knuckled grip. His face flashes a sickly green from the flickering neon sign in the bar window, leaving his skin slate grey when the sign goes off.

Kala approaches his car slowly. Rain beats against the windows and blurs her approach. When she knocks on the window he startles, digs in his jacket. _Did he bring a gun?_ He visibly settles when he turns and recognizes her. He rolls down the window. He has black specks on one side of his face, a large bruise on the other.

“What’s going on with you?” she snaps. “What are you doing out here?”

“I’m sorry,” he says. After a pause, he continues, “I need to get out of Berlin tomorrow.”

“Oh.” The specks on his face are blood, on closer inspection. He shows up half an hour late, frozen in place, blood-splattered, bruised, and carrying a gun in his jacket. She’s not stupid. She knows what this adds up to. Fear rushes through her, but all she says is, “I’m leaving Berlin tomorrow too.”                                                                                             

“You’re going back to India. To your husband.”

“No, I’m going on the last part of my trip,” she says. He looks so stupidly miserable, and her heart flutters a little stupidly to match. The residual anger from being stood up drains, and she doesn’t examine whatever other feelings remain. “Wolfgang, are you all right?”

Something seems to pop back into place for Wolfgang, a ball into a socket, and he glances sideways at her. He doesn’t answer her question, but he says, “Well, if we’re never going to see each other again, we should at least get drunk off good beer first.”

Kala raises her eyebrows at him. She can’t stop thinking that this is a terrible idea, but she knows she’ll regret it if she leaves now. He looks up at her with tired eyes, hopeful but resigned. He needs a drink. She needs a drink.

She opens his car door with a flourish. “After you,” she says.

***

Kala wakes up on an unfamiliar couch and thinks _oh no_. She only has vague memories of last night, of beers and shots and a giggle fit at Wolfgang’s front door. She remembers being so, so tired, and collapsing onto the most comfortable couch in the world. She remembers his arms, firm and steady, holding her upright when she could not stand herself.

She jerks upright to make sure she’s wearing all her clothes and immediately regrets it. Her body reacts to the movement as if she tried to do a somersault in a cement mixer stuck on a rollercoaster track. “You are not going to throw up,” Kala whispers fiercely to herself. “You are a grown woman.” She burps. “You know how to handle this. You will not…”

She lurches off the couch in search of the toilet. She’ll make it in time, the bathroom is just around the corner from—

“Morgen.” Wolfgang says. He nods at her, seemingly unaware of how extremely naked he is.

Kala kneels and vomits into the toilet, then heaves panting breaths for several long seconds. She needs to rush out of room to process the huge… the huge mistake she just made, but she is tethered to this toilet now, body and stomach. Her useless hands tremble in her lap. Moisture and heat left over from Wolfgang’s shower cloud the bathroom air and cling to her skin. Her forehead finds the dewy surface of the toilet lid, and she does her best not to think about the germs. She leans her sweaty face toward the bowl, hunching her shoulders to keep her hair from falling into the toilet.

Wolfgang says, “That was rude,” and then he crouches next to her and pulls her hair away from her face. He drips blessedly cold water droplets onto the bared back of her neck. She retches once more, vomits herself empty, and then spits into the toilet bowl. Wolfgang brushes his cool fingers over the nape of her neck throughout, back and forth, back and forth. It grounds her, saps some of the heat from her red-hot skin.

Kala stands slowly and goes to the sink. Her throat is scratchy, her mouth is rancid, and her face is burning. She coughs awkwardly and mumbles her thanks, then dips her face towards the running faucet.

“You could at least look me in the eye after hurting my self-esteem like that,” Wolfgang says. He, mercifully, has wrapped a towel around his waist.

She scoffs. “As if I’d still believe _you_ need any help with your self-esteem.”

“And what do you mean by that?”

“ _Nothing_.”

“Uh huh.” She doesn’t need to look at him to know the smugness lining every centimeter of his grin. He continues, “Well I’ll leave you to your washing. There’s clean towels and clean pajamas in the closet there if you want to shower. I’ll drive you to your hotel whenever you’re ready.”

“Thank you,” she says, turning at last to face him. He’s about to say something else, but she darts forward and shuts the door, leaving him barely enough time to duck out of the way.

Her head wobbles from dehydration and bad decision-making alike, so she slides to the ground against the bathroom door and shuts her eyes, like she’s seen her favorite film actors do. It’s not as gratifying as she’d imagined it. She hoped her imminent departure from Berlin would enforce an end to her poor decisions, but she doesn’t want this absolute embarrassment to be her last meeting with Wolfgang. Last encounters should be special.

There is an easy solution to this problem, and it is a terrible idea. Kala knocks her head against the door, and her head pounds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wasn't gonna post this til i had more of the next chapters done but i got excited reading my outline so im gonna try to rush the process a little. hope u enjoy. ✌


	5. Chapter 5

Kala, distracted by the enormous pressure threatening to crack through her skull, isn’t quite sure how Wolfgang ended up in her hotel room with her. She can imagine him weaseling his way in while she dealt with her hangover, but she can also easily imagine inviting him up without thinking about it. Regardless, here he is, helping her pack and fiddling with her perfume bottles. She’s grateful that he helped her take care of herself, so she supposes she doesn’t mind his presence.

Only, now they’re alone in a hotel room.

It feels… friendly she’s sure. He paired all her loose socks and ironed a shirt for her. That’s friendly. She made a friend is all. And it would make sense to invite a friend on a nice trip when that friend’s schedule just so happens to coincide with yours, right?

Her phone buzzes. Rajan messaged her. It reads, _Hello my darling Kala. I hope that you are enjoying your last day in Germany. Are you on Skype yet? Love, Rajan_. Oh shoot, she forgot. A creeping sense of dread settles in the pit of her stomach, and she refuses to think about what, exactly, she’s dreading.

She texts back, _ya 1 sec_

“Did you pack my laptop?” she asks, already disassembling her first suitcase. She’s fifteen minutes late and this is the last time they’ll get to talk until she’s on her way home.

“No. Kala, stop that.” He grabs her hands. “I’ll have to repack that now.”

“Where is it?”

“In your carryon.” He leads her to her bag, still holding her hand. “You shouldn’t put your laptop in checked luggage. Someone might steal it.”

“Someone like you?” she blurts.

He drops her hand and sets about reorganizing her muddled suitcase. “My jobs are bigger than that,” he says, making as little eye contact as she is.

Kala takes a seat at the vanity and sets up her laptop. There’s an opening right now; she could ask Wolfgang about what happened last night, perhaps learn if her friend is dangerous after all. She’s not sure if she wants to know. Instead she asks, “Why are you packing for me?” He pauses in the middle of refolding her favorite yellow blouse. “I mean, please continue, but even my own mother would call me lazy and make me help to pack my own baggage.”

“You are lazy,” he says, heaving a suitcase onto the coffee table, “But I like doing this part. Putting things in their proper places. It’s the laundering I don’t like.”

Kala turns back to her laptop, adds this to the list of unexpected quirks she’s learned about Wolfgang in the past few days. He’s an odd mish mash of things. A neat and orderly large-scale criminal. His pushy, broad-shouldered surety made mild by respectfulness. Unkempt stubble, a sometimes mocking mouth, coupled with a sad, indulgent smile. She tries to think of any of Rajan’s idiosyncrasies, but he’s maddeningly immaculate: a rising businessman, neatly trimmed and outfitted, well-spoken, educated, and empathetic. Not one trait or odd habit out of place. The rational part of her mind reminds her that Rajan has never come to her blood-spattered and bruised. If nothing else, Rajan is at least entirely explicable.

Skype rings then. She shoots a glare at Wolfgang, points an accusatory finger. “Do not come into the picture or say a single word.”

She puts on a smile and picks up the call. After their regular greetings, Kala listens with half a mind while Rajan updates her on his father’s health, the state of the company, and the delicious dinner her father made when he visited her parents again. She devotes the other half of her mind to tracking Wolfgang without moving her face or eyes. All Wolfgang does is settle on top of the bed and pull her book off the nightstand.

Rajan is as genuinely interested in what Kala has to say as usual. He gives his perfectly nice responses and asks his exquisitely tailored questions. She goes over the last day and accidentally skips past meeting Wolfgang in a café again. She means to tell Rajan so that she can talk about her adventures in German beer, but she’s not quick enough to make up a less scandalous version of the story.  

It’s not that she’s keeping Wolfgang a secret. Kala wouldn’t lie to Rajan. Of course she’d tell him all about Wolfgang if he asked. She mentioned Wolfgang after their first encounter, when he was just a stranger in a café. It feels like so much has happened since then, all much larger and stranger and more inappropriate than anything she can summarize in a quaint back-and-forth with her husband. She’d rather use her precious little time with Rajan talking about more important things. She realizes she’s trailed off mid-sentence. Rajan should probably be suspicious, but he simply holds the conversation afloat while she gathers herself.

When they start talking about the differences in the weather they are experiencing, Kala knows it’s time to draw the conversation to a close. She tells Rajan she has a lot of packing left to do. As expected, he apologizes for taking too much of Kala’s precious time, expresses his love with utmost sincerity, and says goodbye.

As soon as the call is over Kala checks on Wolfgang. “You’re surprisingly good at being unobtrusive,” she says, “How is it that you’ve never practiced this skill with me before?”

“Your husband hasn’t been present before,” Wolfgang says without looking up from her book. Kala adds one more thing to her list of Wolfgang’s quirks: enjoys romance novels. She shuts her laptop and goes to sit next to him on the bed. He folds the page to mark his place and sets the book down between them.

“You don’t love him,” he says.

She tilts her heavy head back to look at the ceiling. “He’s my husband.”

“Even more tragic.” His tone is light, like everything is simple.

“I—you barely know me. You don’t know anything about us.”

“I don’t know anything about your marriage, but I do know you.” He places a hand on her wrist, opens his mouth to say something else, but thinks better of it.

Kala, unwilling to fill the silence with meaningless justifications or lies, doesn’t say anything. She shifts lower on the bed to rest her head on the pillow. He follows. They lay on top of the covers like children, facing each other from their pillows, just close enough for secrets to slip between them. His breath ghosts across her skin. Wolfgang adjusts his arm so that he can twine his fingers through hers. The contact is easy, light, and not enough.

“I don’t love him,” she whispers.

“I know.”

“He doesn’t know. I’ve never told anyone.” The truth of it all stings her. She shuts her eyes. She’s so tired of running through these thoughts, of endlessly seeking a solution. She wants a way out to unfold itself before her, she wants to move forward, finally, but there’s no exit that lets her avoid Rajan looking at her, shocked and wretched with grief.

“You don’t have to tell anyone,” he says. His thumb brushes over the delicate skin of her eyelid. She opens her eyes.

He says, “We can do this. Whatever we’re doing. We don’t have to say or think anything about love.”

She scoffs and closes her eyes again.

She startles when she feels the knuckles of his fingers tracing along her cheek, outlining her mouth. He has his hand curled loosely into a fist against her skin, like he’s delivering the softest, gentlest blow. His palm comes to rest on her cheek, fingers fitting carefully into her hair. She parts her lips.

“I have a terrible idea.” She reaches out to feel the hair lining his jaw. His face is both fine and rough to the touch, depending on which way she strokes.

His jaw tenses under her fingers. He’s nervous. He says, “I love terrible ideas.”

“Come with me.”

He grins. “Asking me to run away with you?”

A tense pressure builds behind her eyes, like she’s about to cry. She says again, “Come with me.”

“Of course,” he says.

Wolfgang looks so earnest and Kala wants desperately to kiss him.

“I have to finish packing,” she says. She swings her legs over the side of the bed.

“Right,” he says. The bed dips under his weight as he sits next her. She turns her face away from him, so he takes her hand. “I will go to pack a bag and then meet you in the lobby in an hour. If you are not there, I will understand.” He lifts her hand and presses his lips to her fingers.

The air remains heavy and constricting after Wolfgang shuts the door behind him, but Kala finishes packing without an ounce of guilt in her system. She has no idea if she’s doing the right thing for herself, but she is going to France regardless. She may as well enjoy it.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> these next few chapters have been such a pleasure to write. i hope you enjoy reading them as well! :))

A small, elderly woman greets them at the door of Kala’s countryside rental home. She smells so strongly of red wine that Wolfgang suspects that she has an open bottle tucked under her orange patchwork skirt. The woman adjusts her thick-framed glasses and peers at Kala and Wolfgang appraisingly.

“Welcome,” she says generously, “Just so you know, I’ve never had a problem with interracial marriage.” Wolfgang fights to keep the grin off his face.

 “Oh. No, no, no,” Kala says, her face tinting red. “You’re mistaken. We’re not in a marriage at all.”

 “You told me you were married,” she says.

Kala says, “Uh.”

The woman skitters into the house, her short, bristly ponytail swerving about behind her as she shakes her head. She left the door open, so Wolfgang pulls Kala through the door to follow her. She fusses about in the kitchen, moving a stool to reach a bottle of wine she left on a high counter. The bottle has a card with extravagant script on it, reading _To Mr. and Mrs. Rasal_. She mutters, “Elle dit ‘mariés’ sur le téléphone. Et maintenant... Que c’est un couple non marié dans mon lit! Quel désastre...”

Kala looks nervously between Wolfgang and the woman scuttling about before her. On the plane, Kala had learned all the words in her French phrasebook with distressing ease, but her limited vocabulary seems to be failing her now. Based on her frantic expression, Wolfgang is sure she at least pieced out “désastre” on her own.

“Pardon,” Wolfgang says. The woman squints at him. “Kala, my wife, meant to say we’re not in an interracial marriage. Of course are married.”

The woman goes _hm_ and looks at Kala.

“Yes,” Kala agrees. “He is my husband. And I—he is Indian too. Not interracial.”

The woman crosses her arms, unimpressed. Kala leans into him and fits her hand into his, all practiced ease and casual affection, like they _are_ married, like they touch each other all the time. She kisses his shoulder, an offhand touch that leaves Wolfgang’s skin buzzing with nerves under the sleeve of his T-shirt.

The woman goes _hm_ once more. She seems to accept it, and she presents the wine bottle in her hands to Wolfgang, as if that’s all she ever intended to do with it. She leads them around the house, explaining how to counteract the minor faults in the fixtures as she goes. Kala sneaks mischievous glances at Wolfgang all the while, like they're children playing a prank together. Wolfgang doesn’t let go of her hand.

Once the woman leaves, Kala releases Wolfgang to begin unpacking her bags. Wolfgang doesn’t want to confront the issue of his sleeping situation just yet, so he opts to dump his bag and explore the surrounding area. He takes the rental car and drives the opposite direction of the town, hoping to see only countryside. He ends up stopping at a river access point a few minutes’ drive away, already bored of the endless fields and grass.

Wolfgang goes down to the river bank and sits in the mud. The river water is dark and cloudy, so unlike the pools back home. Sand floats through the water like heavy smoke through air. He’s used to dirt, but not so used to countryside. The countryside feels emptier than the city, but is not an empty space by any measure, with its river and its fields and its... creatures. Not empty, but unpopulated until his arrival. His presence here is large and disruptive. He’s out of place in the country in a way he never is in the city.

He still feels strange and buzzy thinking about Kala’s hand in his, about her easy kiss on his shoulder. Kala is a wealth of kindness and affection, and, inexplicably, she has opened up to him. He fits his own hands together, like a fucking loser, since no one is around to see it.

He sits until the mud from the riverbank starts to seep through his jeans. He heads back to the car. The fields have nothing to offer him.

***

“Why aren’t you wearing pants?” is the first thing Kala says to him upon his return.

“They’re muddy,” he holds them up to demonstrate, “I didn’t want to dirty the car.”

She rolls her eyes. “Go wash them and dress yourself. We need to get food.”

Kala drives them into town, a pastoral, homey place, with only two main streets and one small grocery store. Kala drops Wolfgang off at the store with a grocery list and goes to buy wine. Everyone in the town seems to know each other, but they don’t balk at Wolfgang’s presence either. They offer warm hellos as he shuffles through the cramped aisles, and he finds it easy to nod back. The cashier makes pleasant conversation and recommends he visit the fromagerie.

Wolfgang finds Kala waiting outside the shop with four bottles of wine. He raises his eyebrows at this.

“We’re only here a week," he says. "Only six days if we’re going to see Paris.”

She says, “Oh be quiet.”

They go to the fromagerie. The shopkeeper is excessively nice, recommends them four cheeses to go with their four wines, and lets them try a fifth and a sixth as well. They buy a lot of cheese. As the shopkeeper bags the cheese, he tells them to check the boulangerie across town, where they bake fresh bread all day long.

Bumping shoulders and talking softly, they wander down the narrow streets in the general direction of the store. The town rides a comfortable line between close-knit and private that lends itself to quiet intimacy. It feels right to take Kala’s hand as they walk, no risk or wrongdoing involved. When she tucks her head over his shoulder while they pick out bread, it hardly registers. Their mood bleeds into their tastes, and they double back to pick out a dessert wine before they head out.

On the ride back, she pops grapes into his mouth while he drives. He bites through the thin skin, enjoys the sweet flesh and cool juice, refreshing after wandering so long through the warm, dry air in town. She stops eating the grapes herself soon enough, but she continues to place them on Wolfgang’s tongue. Her hands start to linger. First it’s just her palm brushing his neck, then it’s her thumb tracing his jaw, until her fingers swipe across his lips, clean and deliberate. He keeps his eyes on the road.

Kala’s not good at cooking. She explains, “I wasn’t expecting to have to cook,” but she lets her husband’s name remain unsaid. The old kitchen light barely manages to light the room now that night has set in. The light turns everything a hazy yellow-brown, but they don’t turn on any other lights. She sets water to boil  for pasta while Wolfgang looks up a recipe on his phone. He places a pan on the stove next to her, gathers ingredients for a gorgonzola sauce.

The kitchen is the perfect size for one cook to be able to reach anything at any time, or the perfect size for two cooks to knock their elbows together constantly. They tease and push at each other until boiling water slops out of Kala’s pot and puts out her gas flame. Glaring at Wolfgang, she relights it. She dips her pinky in his sauce to spite him. Licks the sauce cleanly off, grins at Wolfgang with her lips still around her finger.

Once the pasta is ready Wolfgang calls his sauce good enough, and he shuts off the flame. He mixes the noodles into the sauce, splits the portions onto two plates. Kala opens each cabinet, but can only find one wine glass. “The other must have broken,” Wolfgang says. She shrugs. Too lazy to set the table, they eat standing up, sharing and refilling a single glass of sparkling Rosé between them.

Wolfgang washes the dishes when they finish.  Kala says, “Come to bed when you are finished,” and heads upstairs. Wolfgang dries his hands and goes.

They fall asleep in the same bed, arms just barely touching, legs tangled together.


	7. Chapter 7

Kala takes Wolfgang into town again. They pick up a bike rental Rajan had reserved months in advance, and they buy a lunch for the road. There’s a château that Kala wants to explore a few miles past town, so they bike there.

They start in the gardens, hoping to take advantage of the cool morning air. They weave through tall hedges and wide flowerbeds on gravely pathways. Kala’s bike rattles as she cycles, and little pebbles fly up and clink against the aluminum frame. One poorly placed pebble jettisons up and to the side, hitting Wolfgang in the face and knocking him off his bike. She laughs so hard she nearly swerves into a bush. They walk their bikes after that.

They find a fountain in the middle of the garden, shaded by overgrown eucalyptus trees. They sit on the rim of the fountain, dip their feet in. Over lunch they guess at which Grecian gods or ancient figures might be depicted in the sculpture in the center. Kala thinks they’re in love, points to the sculptures’ desperate, grasping hands. Wolfgang says they’re probably dying in each other’s arms. Whoever the statues were, their stone likenesses are beautiful, and fiercely loyal to each other.

They circle back to the front of the château after lunch. They find a place to lock their bikes and sign up for a tour. The house itself is grand. A huge structure, delicately designed and handsomely decorated. There are people living in the west wing, so they can only visit the east wing today. To make up for the shortened tour, they get to sample wines throughout, made at the vineyard adjacent to the château. The rooms are far less stuffy with a wine-clouded mind. Kala decides she likes rococo. Wolfgang has no thoughts on the matter.

They bike back into town with flushed faces and sun-browned skin.

***

The rental house has a pool. Wolfgang usually swims nude, apparently, but Kala makes him put a swimsuit on and they go for a swim. Wolfgang steps in first. He says the water is cold, “fucking freezing,” to be exact, and nearly backs out. Kala tries the water, finds it refreshing. She ducks her head under and swims to the other side. Wolfgang is still standing there shivering. She swims back, takes his hand, and pulls him in.

He swims laps to warm himself up, and his limbs fold and lengthen so beautifully, so naturally. Kala watches the smooth slide of his muscles along the span of his back with a great deal of interest. He looks good in the water. He’s got a stocky frame, strong and wide, but in the pool he moves with grace. Her limbs feel gangly and imprecise next to his sweeping arms, so she lounges to the side with her lip between her teeth.

***

The afternoons get unbearably hot inside the house. One such afternoon, Kala suggests they go swim in the river. Wolfgang doesn’t think it’s a good idea, which makes Kala more excited about it. He rolls his eyes and goes along.

They can reach the river from their backyard, but the bank is rocky and the current is swift where they are. They walk to the access point Wolfgang found earlier. In the fifteen minutes it takes to walk there, the sky starts to cloud over. A few drops land on Kala’s face and shoulders, but she ignores them.

They reach the riverbank and river is filthy. Not in the sense that it’s polluted or logged with trash, but it’s _dirty_. Little fish swim through the slimy plants lining the rocks at the edges of the water. Huge swathes of mud float through the center, making it impossible to see what else might be in the river.

“This is gross,” Kala says.

Wolfgang laughs at her, but doesn’t gloat. Rain starts to fall outright. Even if they start walking back immediately, they’ll still be soaked before they get home. The rain could pass fairly quickly. Kala says as much to Wolfgang.

They make their towels into cushions and set them on the riverbank so they don’t have to sit in the mud. It’s colder, now that they’re wet, and Kala rubs her arms to warm them. Wolfgang drags his towel closer, wraps his arms around her, lets her huddle into his jacket. Leather jackets don’t seem like such a ridiculous choice of clothing to Kala now, pressed up against Wolfgang’s warm chest.

The rain plucks at the surface of the water as they watch. It rains enough that the current speeds up, and the water level slowly rises. It’s simultaneously exhilarating and a little boring to watch it happen in real time. Kala rarely takes the time to see nature unfold naturally. Her job in medicine is to manipulate nature, prevent it from unfolding the wrong ways. She doubts this river is free from human interference, but it’s closer than anything she’s seen in recent years. She’s entranced.

They sit there, still and silent, until Wolfgang sneezes. Kala stands up at once, eager to leave before either of them gets sick.

***

The nights are deliriously starry. The sky is overwhelmed with stars, far more than either of them ever see in their bustling hometowns. They each get caught at the window once or twice, trying to absorb the unfathomable night sky.

Wolfgang catches Kala at the window tonight. He puts his hand on the small of her back. She takes the blanket from the bed, and goes downstairs. He hears the door to the deck open, hears the creak of the porch swing.

He picks up the single wine glass and the Sauternes they bought on the very first day and goes out to join her. Wolfgang’s eyes take a minute to adjust to the darkness. He can hear the river rushing along but can’t see it. Kala sits huddled up in the blanket on one side of the porch swing, looking outward and upward. Without turning her head, she looks sideways at him. She holds open the blanket, and he goes to sit with her. He gives her the glass and pours the wine. They pass it between them, relishing the honey-sweet acidity in silence.

“This trip is nicer than I thought it would be,” Kala says into the glass.

Wolfgang hums his agreement. “I keep wondering why you picked this place.” Kala loves transient places, metropolitan areas, crowds and people. She told him so. This deeply settled town, with unpaved roads and far apart homes, seems so unlike Kala.

“Rajan picked it.” She pauses for so long that Wolfgang thinks she will leave it there. But she passes him the wine and continues quietly into her drawn up knees. “He wanted us to spend time with just each other, after all the shows and sightseeing in London and Berlin. How could I argue with that? How can I say that I—that I prefer the crowds and the hustle to spending time with him? That they make me feel present, and—and _seen_. I’d be invisible out here with him. But I can’t tell him that. I agreed to spend a week in the countryside so I didn’t have to admit to him that I feel—I don’t feel seen with him.”

She stops talking and looks suddenly like she might cry. It’s the most she’s said about Rajan since Wolfgang has met her. It’s also the worst she’s said.

“How can you look at me like that?” she asks, voice tight.

Wolfgang isn’t sure what she’s talking about. He doesn’t think he’s doing anything different. “Maybe I’m trying to see you,” he says.

Kala’s eyebrows are drawn together. She looks wrecked. He brushes his fingers across her face and hopes to god she doesn’t cry. She doesn’t. Instead, she leans in and kisses him for the first time, closed-mouth, chaste. He kisses her back. A few barely-there, indulgent sweeps of their lips.

As abruptly as she started, she stops. She sniffs hard, once, then stands up and walks away. The porch door opens, shuts.

Wolfgang knocks his head on the back of the bench and whispers “shit” to the night sky. He’s got it so fucking bad.

They finished the wine already, just half a mouthful left in the glass. He drinks that and closes his eyes, stewing in silence and thinking about every decision he’s made that led him to this point. That led Kala to this point.

The past few days had been almost unreal in their breathless perfection. He’d only been following her cues, never taking it any further than she did. But he understands that it can be hard to set boundaries when you don’t know where yours lie until you blast past them. He wants to tell her it’s okay, that this doesn’t have to change anything.

Honestly, he would tell her almost anything to get her to sit with him some more.

He takes a cigarette out of his jacket and steps off the deck to smoke it. The moon is full, so close to the horizon it almost touches the tops of the tree-lined mountains. It looks huge and preposterous. He hears Kala open the porch door again. He doesn’t turn, lets Kala keep her privacy. He can hear the blanket shifting as she picks it up off the swing.

She says, “Come to bed when you are finished.” The door closes.

Wolfgang whispers, “Fuck,” and finishes his cigarette.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i was gonna hold onto this chapter for a little longer, but it flows better when read right after 7, i think.

She’s in bed already, facing the window and pretending to sleep, her eyes unnaturally scrunched up. He lays on his back next to her. Facing her would be too forward, facing away too dismissive. God, he feels like a teenager again, obsessing over the implications of every gesture. He won’t be able to fall asleep lying on his back. He turns to his side, away from Kala.

Minutes pass before she shifts. He’s half asleep by then, and her hand on his shoulder startles him. She pulls him gently, so gently, until he is turned onto his back again. He stares at her face in the low light, desperate to know how she’s feeling, what he should do next. Her face is serene. Calm and still. He’s at a loss.

She parts her lips like she’s going to say something. She props herself up on her elbow, leaves her face hovering over Wolfgang’s. He’s deadly nervous. Again, she looks like she’s going to speak, but she stops before any words come out. She rests her hand on his bare chest and kisses him, unhurried but burning with urgency. They kiss until all his tension bleeds out, leaving him boneless, loose, and wanting.

When Kala pulls back slightly she leaves a curtain of hair tickling at the side of Wolfgang’s face. She licks her swollen lips. Worry creases the corners of her eyes as she looks at him. He says, “Yes,” like she was asking a question. She nods back.

She rises to her hands and knees to reach past him, to the nightstand. Her body stretches in a lovely arc above him. Her shirt rides up, exposing a few precious inches of skin. He skims his fingers along her stomach there. The flat of her stomach quivers under his touch, belying her cool demeanor. She holds his hands in place on her stomach, and he’s pulled partially upright as she settles back into a kneeling position. She looks at him with a face so easy and longing. His hands travel farther up, pulling her shirt up and off. He presses a kiss to her breast, wraps his arms around her waist. She fits so neatly in his arms. She makes a quiet _mmh_ sound, and holds his head there. His mouth opens on her soft skin.

He pulls back to kiss at her jaw, but she places her hand on his chest and pushes until he’s lying flat on his back on the sheets. She straddles his hips and slips her fingers into the palm of his hand, leaves a condom there.

Wolfgang says, “You’re sure?”

“Shhh,” she says, nodding, moving against him.

They go all night without saying another word, but they find other things to do.

***

They wake up with their bodies pressed close. They kicked their blankets to the floor sometime in the night, but Kala still feels so warm. Wolfgang is looking at her, so she stares back.

“We’re very good at that,” she says.

Wolfgang asks, “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” she says, without hesitation.

“Is this okay?”

Kala thinks for a moment. “I don’t know. But we can’t stop now.”

***

Kala fails to meet any more of her rental reservations for the rest of their time at that house. She and Wolfgang get incredibly lazy about their vacationing. Or: they get very serious about their honeymooning. Their first night of unbridled desire knocks their boundaries down, and they grow strange.

***

She cuts his hair with a pair of kitchen scissors. She’s never cut anyone’s hair before. She gets a comb, hoping it will make her cuts clean and precise. It doesn’t. She runs her fingers through the short hair at the nape of his neck over and over, trying to suss out why it looks uneven. He nearly falls asleep under her soothing touch.

Afterwards, he spends ages brushing her hair. He has never brushed anyone’s hair before, has never even seen it done. He learns how to keep the pull of the brush from yanking her scalp. He is careful not to cause her any pain. Girls must brush their hair one hundred strokes, he heard once, each morning and night. He brushes, brushes, brushes, and her hair turns to waves of silk in his hands.

They are so soft for each other, she and him, so easy under each other’s fingers.

She tries to help him shave once, nicks his cheek. The spot of bright blood transfixes her. He dabs at it, unconcerned. He nudges her arm forward again, lets her finish her task. She holds her hand perfectly steady as she runs his razor down to his neck. He has so much trust in her, and it pleases her. He's given her so much power. It sends a rush through them both.

***

Kala has never, will never smoke, but she learns that she likes to watch Wolfgang smoke, likes to watch his chest expand with air before smoke curls from his lips.

He’s told her that he’s killed before. Wicked men, men like his father. When he smokes she can see it. His eyes go thoughtful and hard. Other people have been cruel to him. He has been cruel to other people. Even in the middle of the French countryside, where there is no one he knows for miles and miles, when he holds a cigarette between his lips, he knows he is capable of great harm.

Kala likes to make him hold the smoke in until she puts her hand over his mouth, likes to watch the smoke filter through her fingers. She won’t kiss him until he cleans his mouth out, so after each cigarette he goes inside to brush his teeth. His eyes are tender again when he comes back. His mouth tastes like mint, just the barest hint of smoke underneath. This is how she likes to think of him: refreshed. Once unclean, now reborn. Done with death and violence, hers alone.

***

They go into town rarely, mostly to buy food. They cook for themselves and take their meals at home. They spend the rest of their time drinking and napping and fucking. Like a break in a dam, like an unstopped drain, they can’t contain themselves anymore. One sin is no better or worse than one thousand.

Their food is simple: cooked in salt and oil, topped with rich, creamy sauces. Food made to offset their honeyed wines. They sit so close they’re nearly on top of each other, eating from the same plate and licking food from each other’s sticky palms. They refill their wineglass three, four, five times, until they lose track. Their lips are loose and sweet, spilling secrets and kisses without distinction. They learn each other’s hearts, each other’s mouths.

***

They take the spare blanket out of the linen closet and lay it on the deck. They lay in the sun, trading messy kisses when they have the energy to, sleeping when they don’t. They undress each other leisurely, no real intent aside from discovering each other’s skin.

They sit on the steps of the pool sometimes to stay cool, holding hands and telling stories. They learn each other’s pasts until the water makes their feet wrinkle up. They go back to the deck, dripping carelessly on their blanket. The sun turns their skin dark and lovely.

When it rains they hop into the pool and duck underwater. From below, the surface of the pool looks like syrup. Raindrops _plip!_ on the surface, leaving water rings reverberating in their wake. They flick water at each other like children. They swim and float and wrap their legs around each other. The water saps the heat from their bodies, raising goosebumps all over, and they take the time to learn this version of their skin too.

***

They throw the past and future away, and their minds fog over. They are clear on one thing alone, on the need that sings through their blood. They’re stupid for each other, and their bodies desperate. They are reckless, wild, and frenzied. It’s beautiful, it's heaven, and it can’t last.


	9. Chapter 9

They leave the house, pack up and get on a train to Paris. Kala has one day and one night before she flies back. Kala and Wolfgang spend the entire train ride disagreeing about what they’ll do in Paris when they get there. The rhythm of their arguments, littered with cheesy grins, is familiar already.

Of course their first stop can only be the Eiffel Tower, and Kala refuses to budge on this. Wolfgang thinks it’s stupid, but Kala can’t _not_ go to the Eiffel Tower. She wins, of course. It is the last day of her honeymoon.

The elevators at the tower are crowded with people, and they get pushed up against the window on their way up. It smells like sweat and metal. Wolfgang presses close against her back, and Kala watches the rows upon rows of interlocking metal bars slide past them. The bars grow closer and closer to each other as the tower converges at the top. They’re wrapped up in a brownish metal spine with dozens of other people. Kala can’t remember why this is supposed to be romantic. She had wanted to kiss Wolfgang at the top of the tower, just a peck, but once they’re actually there the thought repulses her.

The outer view makes it worth it, she thinks. Paris is a beautiful sprawling city, its age apparent in its design. The buildings are lower to the ground, and organized around their dark, wide river, not so reliant on square grids and four-way intersections. She doesn’t understand why every building is so void of color though. Wolfgang is more or less uninterested, but happy enough to trail along wherever Kala wants to go.

No one pays any special attention to the two of them, just another foreign couple in Paris. She feels strange about it. That they look so normal, that only she knows that what they’re doing is wrong.

They take the elevator back down. From underneath, the bottom of the tower looks like the underbelly of some great mechanical insect. She tells Wolfgang this and he laughs. He takes her hand and pulls her to the stone base of one of the legs of the tower, circles around to the back corner, away from the center and the entrances. The area is still crowded, but the people flow past them without stopping, walking to or away from the tower.

“That was not what I expected,” Kala says.

“It never is.”

“We should have come at night.”

“Or maybe not at all.”

“Maybe,” she concedes. She kisses his smug mouth. It feels so much better to kiss him here than to be at the top of the tower with him. Kala feels uneasy, wonders if her attraction, her feelings, stem from the secrecy and taboo.

She thinks about how he likes bitter beers but sweet wines, how he kisses her so gently but with so much need, how he checks in with her always when they have sex. She thinks about how he braces himself for rejection every time he reveals something new about his past, about his work, about his friends, about his family. How he tells her anyway, so vulnerable and so hungry for her understanding. She thinks about how it feels to tell him about herself, to hold his attention and his admiration wholly.

It's all right, she thinks, smiling against his lips.

***

Kala sees the line leading to the entrance of the Louvre and decides they don’t have to do touristy things. She didn’t like the Eiffel Tower, and museums are always either too quiet or too crowded anyway. Wolfgang doesn’t bother to hide his relief.

They wander the streets of Paris. Wolfgang tells her facts about the streets or buildings, and she tries to guess if he’s making them up. She gets it right half the time, and he tells the truth half the time. Kala tries to find routes that use cobblestone streets exclusively. Wolfgang laughs when her short heel gets stuck between stones, but he gets on his knees to help remove her foot, and he kisses her calf on his way up.

They go to main roads, after that. Kala wants to see the Champs-Élysées anyway.

The roads grow more crowded as they near the Arc de Triomphe. Evening sets in, and the storefronts and streetlights begin to illuminate the city. Kala finds a bright patisserie with a beautiful window display, all thick frostings and powdered sugars. She pulls Wolfgang in with her. Kala buys two of the richest chocolate pastries she can find, so Wolfgang buys a black coffee. They trade back and forth as they walk.

Wolfgang is in the middle of exchanging the coffee for the sweets when he stops cold. A passerby knocks into his shoulder, but Wolfgang is transfixed, does not react. Kala follows his gaze and finds him staring at a handful of men smoking at a street corner up ahead. One of them is looking back at Wolfgang. The man says something to his friend and points at Wolfgang with his chin.

The next part seems to happen in slow motion. The men turn and look at Wolfgang. One man throws his cigarette down on the ground. Kala hears gravel crunch as Wolfgang pivots. He shoves the pastries in her hands, turns, and sprints away. One of the men yells, pointing, and the rest start to run, one at a time, in lurching steps. None of them seems to notice Kala.

She turns around slowly, just in time to see the last of the men dart into an alley. This is completely unfamiliar territory, and she doesn’t know what to do with herself. She’s not sure why she hadn't expected danger out of Wolfgang, knowing what she knows about his life, and considering how they met to begin with. She’s still stunned.

She takes a calming sip of coffee. The heat of the drink chills her even as the caffeine sets her heart beating. She’ll just have to go find him. She drops the pastries and coffee in the trash, and starts wandering the side alleys in the general direction she saw the men go.

She wanders through alleys with a blank mind for two hours before she finds Wolfgang. Only two of the men are with him. One is knocked out cold on the ground. Dead, maybe? The other has Wolfgang pressed up against the wall, a gun pressed tight against the underside of his jaw. Kala knows the soft skin under his jaw well. It’s strange to see the metal of a gun biting it.

The man is saying something to Wolfgang. Kala realizes he's speaking English. She catches the end of his tirade. “—just off Steiner’s crew like that? Like a fuckin’ bazooka and a ride to Paris make you invincible?” he says, “Well, your uncle’s got words for you.”

The whole situation seems unreal. Neither of the men have noticed her. She feels like she’s floating outside her body, watching everything unfold like it’s a movie. The man clocks Wolfgang across the face with the butt of his gun. Kala notices the blood, the bruises then.

There’s a fog in her brain, but her hands move. They reach out and take a long metal pole leaning against the dumpster. Some part of her is careful not to scrape the pole against the ground. They’d hear her. Her hands grip the pole like it’s a bat. She moves forward, swings hard. A loud noise, and then the man staggers back. Wolfgang’s eyes are shocked, wild. Wolfgang lunges forward and takes the man’s gun. He shoots him in the middle of his forehead. The man falls to the ground.

“Kala.”

A dark pool puddles around the man’s head. The shot was quieter than she thought it would be. She had seen silencers in movies, but she never was sure if they made an actual difference in real life. She knows now.

“Kala.” A hand touches her skin and she jumps. Wolfgang is there, panting, watching her. She reaches in her purse, but her hands are clumsy, faraway and disconnected from her. She needs to call the police.

“No, no police,” Wolfgang says, pulling at her hands. She must have said that out loud.

Her mouth forms more words, “Did you kill someone’s ‘crew’ with a bazooka?” When she says it out loud, it sounds like a plot point in a cheap drama. She laughs. Ridiculous. Wolfgang doesn’t respond, so she tries again, “Is what he said about you true?”

“I don’t know,” he mumbles. “I didn’t hear. Some of it, maybe.”

“I knew—I knew you stole. I knew you’re a criminal. But this is so much,” she says. Wolfgang sniffs, wipes at the blood at his nose. Kala gestures at the men on the ground and says flatly, “Are they both dead.”

“I don’t know,” he says again.

“If we can’t call the police, what are you going to do?”

“I’ll take care of it,” he says. As simple as that. Kala realizes this situation is more than a little familiar to him. She knew, she knew, she did. But now she realizes she never really thought about it. She hadn’t _seen_ any of it, and it was kind of romantic before, this hardened criminal, this former killer, turned loose and sweet beneath her. She had somehow expected that things were different, that this chapter of his life was over.

“Kala, listen—”

She interrupts. “No,” she says. “Who is Steiner? What happened to all the people chasing you?”

Wolfgang is silent. He shifts to keep his shoes out of the man’s blood.

“Answer me,” she says.

“I had to get rid of them,” he says, quietly.

“How can you—”

“I do what I have to do. You know this.”

“You didn’t have to do _this_.” Kala points at the men bleeding on the ground.

“You don’t know that,” he snaps. His hands jerk, and he throws the gun to the ground. “You don’t know anything about this. You don’t know these guys. You hardly know _me_ either.”

“I know you.”

“You don’t understand. This is part of me. You can’t ‘fix’ my life with a vacation,” he sneers. “I’m not some fucking side project to pick up while abroad. This,” he opens his arms wide, gestures at the scene, the two bodies in a dark back alley, “This is me.” Wolfgang's face crumples in rage and desolation.

Kala can’t think of a thing to say. He looks terrible. Blood drips from his nose, probably broken. One of his eyes is swollen half shut and his skin is purpling up around the worst of the cuts. She wants to know if he would let her brush her fingers over the bruised skin. She almost tries.

“Get out of here before someone sees you,” he says miserably. Then, with a thread of viciousness in his voice, “Don’t call the police.”

Kala scoffs. “What are you going to do if I do?”

He swallows, and doesn’t answer. She still wants to try to touch his face, to ease his hurt. She realizes something.

“I think I loved you,” Kala whispers.

Wolfgang kicks the gun, hard enough that it ricochets against a wall. He stuffs his hands in his pockets, looks down, and all but runs out of the alley.

Kala doesn’t know what to do, so she leaves. She doesn’t call the police. A parting gift for Wolfgang.


	10. Chapter 10

Kala lies awake most of the night, wrapped up in the huge, white comforter, sleeping in little bursts. Her hotel bed is a luxurious affair, especially after spending a week between a stranger’s threadbare sheets. It’s a nice a place as any to get very little sleep.

After a while she tires of trying to sleep, and it's close enough to morning, so she gets up to finish packing. Wolfgang’s bag is still in the corner of the room. Stupidly, she keeps expecting him to come by and pick it up. She grabs it before she can convince herself not to. Inside are a few days’ worth of clothes, toiletries, and—and one of her scarves. She closes the bag up again and leaves it by the door. He might still come back for it after she leaves. She thinks about leaving a note, in case he does come back, but then she imagines the hotel staff reading it and decides firmly against it. She checks out of the hotel early, too restless to stay in place.

The plane ride back doesn’t afford her any sleep either. She spends half an hour reading, 45 minutes dozing here and there, and roughly eight hours staring out the window. She spends most of those eight hours thinking about Rajan, probably to make up for all the time she refused to think about him during her pseudo-honeymoon. She feels sick and exhausted by the time she lands, but she has reached a decision on what to do. It’s a relief to have a plan after spending so long waiting for things to work out on their own.

Kala goes straight to her parents. She sends Rajan a text to let him know she’ll see him after. She sneaks into the restaurant through the back entrance, finds her dad cleaning grime out of an oven. He is surprised she came to see him first, but overjoyed by her presence.

He must see how tired she is, how little she’s eaten, because he marches her to the couch in the break room so he can set up a plate of food for her. Kala takes a seat while he talks about her mother and shuffles plates around in the kitchen. Kala leans back and the couch creaks, old and familiar. 

***

Kala wakes up eleven hours later in her own bed with a vague memory of her father ushering her drained body up the stairs. She stretches under the covers and sinks deeper into her pillows. It’s been so long since she last slept in this bed. The last time must have been before the wedding. She misses this room. She likes being above the restaurant, listening to the steady flow of people and the clattering commotions in the kitchen. Today seems slow. She can hear the low-level noise indicative of a handful of customers occupying the restaurant. Then she hears the pop and crackle of something being placed in hot oil to fry. Her stomach growls in response.

There’s a note on her nightstand in her father’s handwriting. It reads, “Hello Kala. I hope you rested well. We are all downstairs when you are ready.”

Well, there’s no use delaying.

She gets dressed as quickly as she can, thinking very few thoughts, and flies out the door before she can lose her nerve. She passes the kitchen on her way into the restaurant, and says a quick good morning to her father. His hands are occupied, so he kisses her head and nods. In the restaurant, Kala finds her mother, Rajan, and Rajan’s mother chatting happily over steaming cups of chai. There are two empty chairs at the table, one for her father and one, ostensibly, for her.

Kala’s mother spots her lurking in the doorway first. She leaps out of her chair to hug Kala hello.

“Oh Kala we’ve missed you,” she says into Kala’s shoulder. “Come, you must tell us all about your holiday.”

“Actually,” she says, “can I talk to Rajan alone first?”

“Of course,” her mother agrees, “You had to go so long without your husband and so early in your marriage. You must miss him.” She pats Kala’s arm and kisses her before releasing her.

Rajan stands. “Kala,” he says, arms wide for a hug. Kala ducks away from his open arms and gestures for him to follow her. She turns to rush back upstairs. He hurries to keep up, trailing behind with clambering footsteps. She stops at the top of the stairs and then takes him to her room, where she feels most comfortable.

“How was your trip?” he asks as they settle onto her bed. “I hope you didn’t have too much fun without me.”

Kala almost laughs. She takes a deep breath. On the exhale she says, “I can’t stay married to you.”

Rajan is frozen for a few long seconds, his face blank. “Did something happen?”

“I was unfaithful.”

Rajan goes _hmm_ in the way he does that means he’s choosing his next words very carefully. He takes her hands and looks into her eyes. “Kala, I understand,” he begins, and Kala knows right then he’s going to make this much harder on her than she’d hoped. Anger is easy to deflect. Sympathy fosters guilt. “You made a mistake, but I did too. I failed to prioritize you. We have only just married and I left you alone in circumstances that were—”

“No, Rajan.” Kala pulls her hands from his. He looks at her, panic bleeding into his expression. She says, “It _was_ a mistake, but I was unfaithful because I don’t love you. If I am being honest, I never did.”

“Ah.” His voice is raspy. He looks down and blinks rapidly. He says, “I love you.”

“I know. I knew the first day, as soon as I saw the flowers.” He huffs a sad laugh. She couldn't understand it, then, how someone could devote so much of themself to the prospect of being loved. She thinks she might know more about love now. She continues, “If I were a better person, I would have said something earlier. I should have talked to you instead of cheating. Instead I lead you all this way and married you. I’m so selfish. I let you believe a lie so I would be more comfortable. I was cruel to you and I—”

“Kala, Kala, please.” He looks at her, smiling through teary eyes, and takes one of her hands in both of his. “Don’t talk about yourself this way. I’m sure you were thinking only of my feelings when you withheld your thoughts. And I know it would be hard to reject your CEO’s son when you value your career. You acted this way because you are so kind and clever.”

Kala’s eyes fill with tears and she giggles. She comes to tell Rajan that she was unfaithful and that she wants to leave him, and _he_ ends up comforting _her_. Of course. She asks, “Are you angry?”

“I’m—” He thinks. “I’m very sad. I understand what happened. To tell you the truth, I could sense that you didn’t love me but I didn’t want to believe it.” He breathes a deep, ragged breath. “I loved you so much, and I thought it would be enough. I thought if I did everything right, you would come to love me.”

“I could feel how much you wanted me to love you. Constantly. I wanted it to happen too.”

“We should have known no one can force love.”

Kala sniffs and nods. She says, “You really are a good man.”

Rajan laughs. “I do my best.”

“You would have done right by me,” she says, mostly to herself. Rajan simply nods.

Kala knows she has made the right move, but still she feels hollowed out with sadness. She and Rajan sit quietly, holding hands and crying. The silence is comfortable, now. There is no pressure to say anything, no pressure to stop crying. It’s more intimate than anything they’ve ever done together. Kala feels like she has learned more about Rajan from breaking up with him than from their entire relationship.

She’s a little afraid to speak again. Rajan is probably the easiest man in the world to break up with, but once she leaves this room things will get far more difficult. Eventually Rajan breaks the silence by laughing. His voice a little nasal from crying, he says, “How are we going to tell our parents?”

Kala groans and falls back on the bed. She covers her gross, snotty face with a pillow. “Can we just hide up here forever?”

He laughs again. “Maybe a little longer.” He lays back with her and asks, “How was your trip, really?”

Kala can’t imagine where to begin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapters will be coming slower from here on out. i've just started work at a new job so i've been quite busy. hopefully i'll be able to carve out time to write. please hmu on tumblr @ qunsio if you wanna talk fic or sense8! i might not have time to write full chapters but i'd love to take ficlet or headcanon prompts :))


	11. Chapter 11

Wolfgang is trapped in his uncle’s kitchen, and he’s going to die. There are multiple armed men trying to get inside, each with a better understanding of this house than Wolfgang, and each with something important to stay alive for, probably.

Felix is safe, at least. Wolfgang wishes he could stay alive long enough to make sure Felix would wake up. He wishes he could make sure Kala would be safe too. He’s pretty sure none of Sergei’s men saw her well enough to recognize her, but they have surprised him before.

And Kala is— Kala _was_ something. Kala was someone important, someone his dumb fucking heart still wants to keep safe. He felt like he could be someone better with her, someone smarter, stronger, and kinder. Instead he’s here, crouched low among kitchen cabinets, facing death with nothing but cleaners and odd spices for company.

Wait. Didn’t Kala say she made an explosive out of cleaners and spices? Wolfgang has a lighter and plenty of childhood experience burning random shit you find around a house. He could manage this, maybe. Even if he can’t, he can at least set the house on fire before he dies. It’s worth a shot.

He throws open the cabinets and starts digging for materials, trying to remember what burns best, and what chemical ingredients Kala told him never to mix together. In the end he separates out a weird pile of items and douses them in lighter fluid. He lays them out in a dishtowel, wraps them up, and then lights the bundle and chucks it into the hallway. He gets to a count of four before the explosion shakes the house.

He waits a minute, and then slides over the blockade he made. The hallway is up in flames, making it hard to see or breathe. Wolfgang thinks he counts three bodies writhing on the floor. He shoots those that are still alive. He emerges from the flames with a buzzing in his ears and smoke in his lungs. He feels unhuman, leaving these charred bodies in his wake. The feeling festers in him, turning him sour and furious, and he rides it all the way to his uncle. He knows he can’t coax humanity back into either of them, so he stops hiding and cringing away from his violent impulses and lets himself flex into being a monster.

He empties a clip into his uncle. It doesn’t feel good.

He leaves.

***

He spends a couple weeks living in hostels and motels, slowly burning through the remainder of his cash from the diamond heist. He keeps an ear to the ground as he moves through the city, never settling anywhere he has to put a name down.

He hears his aunt is trying to scrounge up Sergei and Steiner’s remaining lackeys. He moves a couple miles out of town, and drops hints to a rival contact about the power vacuum in Berlin. The Bogdanow Empire dissolves slowly as other families buy out Sergei’s underlings and contacts. His aunt ends up alone. Wolfgang almost feels bad about it. She holds an estate sale, takes the family’s fortune, and disappears.

Wolfgang breaks into his uncle’s house one night, before the new buyers have moved in. He wants to burn it down. It would be difficult, getting a building of this size to catch without alerting rescue services. Wolfgang has spent a lot of time fantasizing about ways to destroy this house though, he knows the best lighting points. He could do it.

In the end, he just steals a painting he liked when he was a kid and goes back to his old apartment. No need for the drama of a house fire. Maybe the new owners can turn the house into something good.

With the threat of his family neutralized, Wolfgang can finally return to his apartment. Everything is grimy from disuse, so he spends his first hours deep cleaning every surface in his home. He’s sweating by the time he’s done, but it’s a clean sweat, from hard work and efficiency.

He checks his mail slot, then. He has a metric ton of mail. Rather than deal with the hard copies, he dumps all his mail on the counter and goes online to pay his bills. He spends two hours hunched over his laptop trying to figure out his finances before the stress overloads him. He texts his old dealer.

His dealer, Ben, does house calls now, so Wolfgang calls him over. He buys an eighth and hooks up with him. Ben has got long, slim arms and careful thrifty fingers. They have a nice enough time. Wolfgang can’t stop feeling like they’re missing out on something important.

Wolfgang doesn’t know how to solve that problem though, so he spends a week getting blackout drunk. He wakes up one morning with a girl still asleep in his bed. She has thick, dark hair. He feels unbelievably pathetic. He goes back to sleep.

He wakes up another morning to the sound of eggs sputtering in hot oil. He rolls out of bed, somewhat pissed that this girl went through his fridge, but mostly excited to eat hot, homemade food. He goes to join her in the kitchen, receives a biting kiss at the edge of his jaw. He pilfers a bread roll and retreats to the table.

She slides him a plate of eggs and takes the seat next to him. “You have a friend in India?” she asks. He looks up, alarmed. She’s chewing on a piece of toast, looking over at his ever-growing pile of unread mail. She catches his expression, and says, “Oh, don’t worry. I didn’t read anything, I was just looking at the picture. Here.” She plucks a glossy, brightly colored square out of the pile and hands it to him. It reads _Greetings from Mumbai_ over an aerial shot of the city.

Wolfgang stares at the image. He doesn’t know what to think, how to react. Especially not with a stranger sitting in his kitchen. His heart slows and his mouth dries up.

The girl says, “Uh, I’m gonna use your shower if that’s all right?” Wolfgang nods without looking up. “Cool,” she says. She leaves the room.

The shower runs for fifteen minutes. Wolfgang eats his eggs, does not look at the other side of the postcard. The girl emerges in fresh clothes, toweling her hair.

“Right, well, you have my number,” she says.

“Yes. Thanks,” Wolfgang says, nodding at his empty plate.

“Sure.” She shuts the door behind her quietly.

Wolfgang sits at the table for several more minutes. For weeks he’s been studiously ignoring his feelings about this _thing_ , this bizarre romantic entanglement he stumbled into that rooted itself in his chest. He was sure he knew how she felt, at the end of it, he doesn’t want to think about how _he_ felt. But he has a card. He wonders how long it has been sitting on his table. He sucks in a breath and flips it over. It’s simple. Handwritten.

_Thanks for the company. I learned a lot about myself with you. I hope you learned too. I hope you are safe. I hope we can both be happy. – K.D._

Wolfgang drops the card onto the table, ignores the fine tremor in his hands, and fetches himself a beer. He doesn’t know how to do this.

He tacks the postcard on the fridge, message facing out. What he really needs is to smoke a bowl with Felix. That’s not an option though, so he doesn’t linger on it. He digs through his jacket to find a cigarette and leans out of his bedroom window to smoke it. He doesn’t know what to do. It’s been months and he’s not over her. Those few weeks he spent with her—

Everything leads to the same conclusion: she is married. She’s somebody’s wife. She has a husband. She is married to another man. So Wolfgang hooks up with his dealer again, spends the night out, and tries to forget he might have ever been in love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for your patience! again, please hmu on tumblr @ qunsio if u wanna talk fic. hope u enjoyed ♡


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaand we're back

Kala is tucked into a corner of her favorite waterfront café, sweat gathering at the back of her neck and along her back where her purse strap lies. A cloud of steam heats her face, blown away by brief bouts of wind from time to time. She has a lot to do, but she could never resist taking an open window seat on a hot, breezy day. She sets her chai on the table and pulls a promising research proposal out of her purse, lets herself settle into the synthetic cushions.

Someone slides into the seat across from her.

“I’m really quite busy,” she says, in English, seeing the blond hair and assuming flirty tourist shenanigans are on the horizon.

He says, “Hello,” in a too-familiar voice.

Her head snaps up. She drops the proposal. It lands on the table with a solid _thwack_. A moment passes in which she registers all the details: his square jaw, framed in stubble, his red-rimmed eyes, heavy with shadows, and his hands. Broad. Shaking. It’s been nearly six months, but of course she remembers him. He knocked her life out of place—or perhaps into place—and, from the look in his eye, he’s going to try again.

She’s not sure what kind of expression is on her face, but Wolfgang leaps out of his chair. He mumbles something that sounds like “sorry” and leaves.

Bewildered, she finds it strangely fitting, this appearance, this departure. Or, not fitting, not really. Circular, more like. Symmetrical. But this time she, too, rises out of her chair, rushes out of the café.

She picks a direction at random and forces her way through the crowded street. After several minutes pressing her way through sweaty torsos, she spots a vaguely familiar face. He’s standing in the middle of the sidewalk, unmoving despite the throng of people passing by him in every direction, and staring into the distance with a look of total exasperation.

“You’re the man from the opera house? In Berlin?” she asks.

He peers at her.                                                                     

“Oh!” he says, “You’re the girl. He did find you, that fucking asshole.” He turns around, squints at the crowd.

“What is— are you doing here? How did you find me?”

“I found your Instagram. You checked in there four times,” he says, gesturing at the café.

“That’s crazy,” she whispers.

He nods. “You should really update your privacy settings,” he says. “I’m Felix.” He stretches his hand out towards her.

“Kala.”

***

Wolfgang hadn’t expected it to work, hadn’t expected that picking through small Mumbai cafes and restaurants with Felix shuffling along after him would amount to anything. He wasn’t ready to find her sitting by a window, quiet and beautiful. This whole time he’d been searching, Wolfgang thought he’d feel thrilled, seeing her. He thought adrenaline would drown out his nerves, but instead he feels like he’s underwater, treading desperately towards a buoy floating slowly away from him.

But now it’s done, he did find her, she didn’t want to see him, and now he can stop thinking about her. He and Felix can go back to Berlin. He’s just about to start packing when he hears a knock on the hotel door.

“We’re coming in!” Felix calls. The door opens, and Felix bursts in, leaving Kala hovering at the threshold.

He says, “Hello.”

“I—,” she says. Her lips start to form words, but no sound comes out. She asks finally, “Can we talk?” Glances at Felix. “In private?”

What can Wolfgang say but, “Of course.”

“Well, then,” Felix says. He walks backwards out of the room, making meaningful eye contact with Wolfgang, as if to say _don’t fuck this up_. He shuts the door behind him, leaving Kala and Wolfgang to themselves.

She comes in and sits in the overstuffed armchair across from him. She sets her purse on the low, chipped coffee table separating them and straightens herself.

Wolfgang asks, “What now?”

“I know it’s ridiculous,” Kala says.

“What is?”

“Doing this.”

“Are you—is Raj—”

“Oh, no. That’s done with.”

“Good.”

 Kala gives him a sharp look. “You— Maybe I have a boyfriend now,” she says.

“Do you?” His face feels hot.

“You can't just assume simply because I'm no longer married that I'm available to you,” she says fiercely. “But no, I don't have a boyfriend.”

“I just mean— I’m sorry you had to do that, but I am glad you can find someone you… someone who knows you.” A stretch of silence yawns between them. Wolfgang picks a loose thread in his chair. He eyes the hotel’s mugs, sitting unused on the table. “Do you—do you want tea?” he offers, eager to busy himself. “I’ll make some.”

Kala jerks out of her chair. “This is ridiculous,” she says.

“Yes,” he agrees. It’s true.

She begins to pace. “We had that—thing,” she says, words coming in rapid order, “and we know so much already, but we did it wrong.” She nods to herself, apparently coming to some kind of conclusion and pacing more quickly. ‘It was right, but we did it wrong. We stacked all our pieces in the wrong order, so of course they came tumbling down.” She looks at him. “We can start again. Do it in the right order.”

“Okay,” he says.

“Okay,” she says.

***

At 5:30 the next day, Wolfgang is freshly shaved and newly outfitted, courtesy of Felix. Kala meets him in the hotel lobby with a small bundle of flowers, a few bright marigolds. He starts to leave the lobby with the flowers tucked in his pocket and Kala laughs, asks if he maybe wants to drop his flowers off in his room first. Wolfgang nods. He’s never been given flowers before.

They walk down to Marine Drive with an awkward amount of space between them. Every time he looks over at her, he’s a little surprised by how far apart they are, but it’s hard to stay close with the streets as crowded as they are. At least, that’s what he tells himself as he speeds up to walk alongside her. Their conversation, too, is forced and stilted. He’s nervous, Kala’s nervous, and it shows. There’s not much to talk about that hasn’t already been said in those weeks they spent together. Except, of course, the important stuff about him and her and the buzzy feeling Wolfgang still gets in his head whenever she's around, but he would happily avoid that conversation indefinitely.

“Ah, here,” Kala says suddenly.

She tugs at Wolfgang’s arm and he refocuses on his surroundings. She’s led him to a parking structure on the outskirts of the city. There are only a few cars on the lower level, but she walks past them and mounts the staircase. She takes him up to the highest level, where the blacktop is empty and vast in the hot air. There’s a raised plaster platform in the center that’s nearly as tall as Kala. Using a parking meter as a step, Kala climbs on top of it. She sits, waits for Wolfgang to settle in beside her. The parking lot is unassuming, but it is tall and situated a little ways uphill from the city, gifting its occupants with privacy and a clear view of the glittering city skyline. From there, Kala and Wolfgang watch the sky go dark. It's a nice spot, and would be very romantic if Wolfgang and Kala weren't sitting stiff as boards next to each other.

After minutes of silence, Kala asks, “How do you like Mumbai?”

“It's nice,” he says. “Crowded. Hot. Great food.” Truthfully, he's had a terrible time in Mumbai. He's been wandering around in the wet heat of city of twelve million people, looking for a girl who may or may not even want to see him. He'd have gone back to Berlin after his first, miserable day of searching had Felix not been there to egg him on.

“I suppose things like architecture never entertained you,” Kala muses.

“No.”

Kala looks down, away. Tucks her hair behind her ear. The parking lot lights flicker on as the sun sinks behind the horizon. Kala’s hair shines with a muted, sterile-white glow.

“This is ridiculous,” she says again.

“Yes.”

“Are you nervous?” she asks.

“Of course.”

“Me too.”

Wolfgang exhales. “I'm worried it won't work.”

“We have to try,” she says.

“I am trying,” he says, inexplicably annoyed. He's tired of trying to explain whatever's going on here to himself, to Felix, to her. “I spent the last month in a foreign city tracking the footprints of the girl from some half-remembered romantic tryst.”

“You only remember half of it?” 

“I didn’t mean that literally,” he grumbles.

“I certainly remember.”

“Yes, well I remember—” He stops before he embarrasses himself. He wonders how much of that last day she's choosing to remember. He changes the subject, says, “It’s hard to believe that this is real. That you’re here.”

“We are here,” Kala says. She looks deep in thought, but she's not sharing, for now. Wolfgang would rather lay this subject to rest. He wants to get back to the level of comfort they once had, to the easy vulnerability, but he can't figure out how they ever got to that stage to begin with. So they lay down and hold still like that, side-by-side in silence as night settles in over an empty parking structure.

Wolfgang has nearly nodded off when Kala sits up. “I must go home or my parents will worry,” she says.

Wolfgang thinks, this must be it. The spark is gone, or perhaps was never there to begin with. She climbs off the platform. He's not sure if he's relieved that this anxiety will finally be resolved or if—

“Are you busy tomorrow?” she asks. “After work I can show you my restaurant.”

“I don't have any plans now that I've found you,” he says. He climbs off the platform as well. “You have a restaurant?”

“My father’s,” she explains. “But mine as well.”

“All right,” he says, smiling.

She takes his hand in hers, guides him down the structure and out through the crowds. They manage to stay closer together on the way back. Back at the hotel, Kala places her hand against his cheek, and, instead of saying good bye, she says, “Too smooth. I miss your bristly face.” Then, she kisses him quickly on the mouth and floats away before Wolfgang can get a proper thought in his head. He spends several long minutes staring after her before he goes up to his room, where he finds Kala's flowers waiting for him.

From the bathroom, Felix calls out, “How’d it go?”

“It went okay.”

“That’s all?”

Wolfgang and Kala's time apart allowed a kind of awkwardness to expand between them, and yet, collapsing into bed, Wolfgang finds he has a grin to hide among his pillows. “Yes. That’s all,” he says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank u all for your patience! hope you enjoyed!


	13. Chapter 13

Standing at a crowded train station the next day, Kala says earnestly, “I want you to know, I looked up romantic lines in preparation for tonight.”

She shifts closer to Wolfgang, the folds of her skirt brushing against his hand. Her face shines faintly with perspiration. She’s pulled her hair up, baring the graceful curve of her neck and shoulders. It’s all quite distracting.

He says, “Tell me.”

“They’re awful,” she says.

“Good.”

“Are you a magician?”

“I—”

“No, you don’t answer,” she says. “Are you a magician?”

He nods for her to continue.

“Because whenever I look at you everyone else disappears.”

“That  _ is _ awful,” he says, laughing. She pushes at his shoulder and laughs along.

The train is only a little crowded when it arrives to pick them up, so they stand towards the back of the aisle, pressed up against one another through the rough commute. Kala tries more silly pickup lines, but they sound less silly, more pressing when Wolfgang can feel the heat of her chest through his shirt. He struggles to focus.

Three stops too late, they notice that the train has mostly emptied. The stop they’re at now is dark, and the train is beginning to refill with a new crowd of people.

“You distracted me,” Kala insists, as she pulls Wolfgang to the street. Wolfgang shrugs. She says, “It's ok. I know this area.”

She takes him through vacant side streets until they reach a steep, dusty hill. It’s fully dark by then, nearly 10 PM, and Kala has led them far enough away from the brilliant lights of the city that they have to pick their way through the darkness with only the moon to guide them. They climb up the hill, and Wolfgang struggles to hold steady with rocks and gravel sliding beneath his feet. Kala glances behind just as Wolfgang stumbles over a tree root, and Wolfgang steps more carefully thereafter. As they near the rounded top of the hill, the ground grows grassier and the dirt wetter, more packed together. Kala takes off her shoes. Wolfgang follows her to an old tree with a wide, healthy trunk. She sits just beyond the furthest reach of its roots, where the grass is thick and soft. She lays down, and Wolfgang sits beside her, threads his fingers through the long blades of grass.

“How did you find this spot?” he asks. There’s a steady breeze clearing the air. He breathes deep, lets the chill fill him.

“My friends and I used to sneak over here during lunch periods. You can see our school down on the other side of the hill, there.” She points to a building at the base of the hill. Still looking off, she says, “I had my first kiss under this tree.”

Wolfgang tries to imagine a smaller, more awkward version of Kala, climbing up this hill to kiss someone for the first time. He wonders if she was nervous, or just impatient. She hasn’t turned back to him, so he doesn’t ask.

“My first kiss was in the sport utility room in primary school,” he says. “It smelled like rubber.” 

Kala props herself up on her elbows beside him. This far from the urban rush, it’s too dark to really see her expression, even as she hovers inches above him. She leans in, kisses Wolfgang on the nose. He smiles. Says, “That was more tame than even my primary school kiss.”

She laughs, kisses him on the mouth. She isn’t tentative about it, but she draws away sooner than Wolfgang would like.

“We should go back,” she says. “We’re going to get terrible bug bites.”

“Don’t you want to go in?”

“Go in where?”

He points at the school.

“But it’s closed.”

“I’ve spent more time breaking in and out of schools than I have attending school.”

Kala replies with a hesitant, “All right,” and they begin down the other side of the hill.

Going down the hill towards the school is much easier than the route they took going up, according to Kala. It’s dark, though, and Wolfgang can still barely see his own feet, let alone the roots and twigs attempting to stop him. Wolfgang stumbles the entire way down, but only falls once. He catches himself on his hands, and his palms burn from scraping against the rocks and twigs. Kala slips down a stretch of mud once, but never falls.

They reach a stone pathway that leads them to the main entrance, a grand iron gate, cool and coarse to the touch. It’s pretty, maybe, Wolfgang can’t tell. He gets closer and shines a light on the lock. He looks up to see Kala’s dubious look. Wolfgang’s not sure if he should be insulted or perhaps grateful that her expectations are so low. He pulls his Swiss army knife out of his pocket and a wooden toothpick from his jacket.

“This is barely even childproof,” he says with confidence, sliding the pick from the army knife into the lock. The pick scrapes satisfyingly against the old, heavy metal as he feels around the inside. He finds the catch, and makes eye contact with Kala as he releases it.

She applauds, then walks in past him.

The school building is dark, and once they get past the grand entrance, there are few windows. Wolfgang can only make out the outline of about a dozen lockers before the hall dissolves into grainy darkness. Kala whispers, “Oh my.” Wolfgang follows her as she steps wonderingly down the hall. She drags her fingers along the nearest locker door, says absentmindedly, “Ah, these were terrible lockers to have. Too close to the entrance, and so far from classrooms. But close to the teacher’s lounge—see over there. Good for the suck-ups.”

“Where was your locker?”

“One floor above.”  

She leads him to a creaky old staircase, the steps worn in the center from the thousands of soles shuffling over them daily. The stairwell has no windows, no light, so he keeps his hand at the base of her back to keep track of her. “Only the teachers were allowed to use the elevators. We all had to climb,” she says, moving silently out into the second floor hallway. 

She walks swiftly, without really looking, and crashes into two separate bookcases. “That’s new,” she says both times. Wolfgang lags behind, trying to make out any piece of what’s in front of him. In the moonlight glowing from the occasional window, he catches the gleam off a new lock on an old locker, and Kala’s faintly shining hair. He follows her.

“This is it,” she says eventually. They stand in front of a locker, exactly the same as the others. She places a fond hand on it.  Quietly, she says, “I was nearly suspended for holding hands with a boy here once.”

Wolfgang takes her hand. “How outrageous,” Kala whispers.

He leans close to her. Asks, “Would it be inappropriate to kiss you right now?”

She leans close to him. Says, “Yes, quite so.” Her eyes shine in the low light. He leans in, just a little more, and she meets him. Her mouth is warm, her lips faintly sticky with sweet lip gloss. Wolfgang places his hand at the base of her spine, and she runs her long fingers across his scalp. 

“You’re going to get me expelled,” she says. Her palm comes to rest against his stomach. Her fingers tap lightly against the hem of his shirt.

“Well,” he whispers, “then we’d better get out of here.”

They do.

***

The next morning, Kala scoops her shoes into her hands as she follows Wolfgang out of his hotel room. She says, “We still need to go on a normal date.”

“This isn’t how normal people date?”

“No,” she says. “Normal people don’t break into private property in the middle of the night or, or make out in secondary schools.”

“And what do normal people do?”

“Normal people eat food, see shows.” She hits the button to call the elevator. “You know.”

“To what end?” 

“To get to know each other.”

“I know more about you,” he says. The elevator doors slide open, and he shuffles forward, nudging her bodily into the elevator. She giggles as she backs up against the wall. “And I know more about this,” he says, and touches her lips with his thumb. 

“That’s true,” she says around his thumb. She takes his hand. “We should still eat.” The elevator opens to the ground floor, and Kala slips past him. “I’ll pick you up tonight,” she calls, slipping her feet into her shoes.

“Tonight,” Wolfgang calls back as she strides out of the lobby.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank u all for your kind comments and your patience! i've been distracted by other fandoms, but i'm still chuggin through this fic. thank you for reading, hope you enjoyed!


	14. Chapter 14

It doesn’t work as they expected. 

Kala whatsapps Wolfgang later on, saying,  _ My parents were upset. Cant go out 2nite. _ Then, two hours later,  _ U could come over after they go 2 sleep. _

Wolfgang replies,  _ This is becoming too much like a school age romance. _

_ Lol its always like this. They should b asleep by 11. _

Wolfgang replies,  _ Send me the address and I will be there at 11. _

_ K _ .

*

At 11:02, a taxi deposits Wolfgang at the address of Kala’s restaurant. It’s in a relatively quiet part of Mumbai, meaning that at this time of night, the crowds are sparse enough that Wolfgang could probably walk in an unobstructed straight line down the sidewalk for, oh, at least 10 seconds. He doesn’t, though, just stands at the section of street he’d been left in. There are three restaurants in his eyeline, and two are still open, so the third, across the street, must be Kala’s. A few members of the waitstaff inside wipe tables down and yell across the restaurant to each other. He doesn’t see Kala yet, so he lights a cigarette and waits.

It’s not so unbearably hot out once the sun goes down, especially as they move from July to August, and Wolfgang likes to think he’s getting used to the weather. The drag of air heavy with humidity in and out of his lungs isn’t so suffocating, and he can stand outside for nearly half an hour without seeking air conditioning. Even so, by the time he spots Kala dodging through traffic to meet him, sweat has stuck the back of his shirt to his skin. He tries not to think about that as he puts his cigarette out and steps into the street to meet Kala.

“Hello,” he says, and ducks his head to kiss her.

She holds a hand up. “Come inside, wash your mouth first.”

He follows her back across the street, into the darkened restaurant. His entrance turns the heads of the waitstaff, and they slip to the sidelines, until Wolfgang and Kala are left alone in a clean, empty dining area. She continues leading him further back, taking deliberate steps to avoid dislodging the chairs resting on the dull silver table tops. He wonders, idly, how much of his time here has been spent following her swift, careful steps, and how much more will be spent doing just that. A door opens to their right, and Kala takes him inside.

“The breakroom,” she says, gesturing at its grandeur: a worn, blue sofa against the wall, an old TV propped on a clean Ikea shelving unit across from it, and above the sofa, an old, rumbly air conditioning unit. A wooden table shoved into the far corner, with six chairs crowded around it, partially blocks another door. “The bathroom,” she says, pointing.

He goes in. The faucet is grimy, but the water comes out clear and cool. He splashes his face, pulls water through his teeth, spits it back out. His face in the mirror is flushed and shining. He goes out, finds Kala shining too. She stands over the table, setting a steaming plate down. The room smells lovely, salt and hot oil, crushed mint and roast lamb. He comes behind her, and along her neck he smells her candy-sweet perfume. He presses his lips to her shoulder. “Hello,” he says again.

“Good evening,” she says. “Have you eaten?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. I prepared a small plate for you.”

“But I’ve already eaten,” he says.

“ _ Tch _ .” She looks at him. “You haven’t eaten here. Sit, sit.”

Wolfgang sits in the proffered chair, finds before him two crisp papadum and a small dish of chutney, and, on another plate, a steaming heap of biryani, and two cups of tea.

“I cannot eat all of this,” he says.

“You think this is all for you? I have two plates here,” Kala says, and takes the seat beside him. She sets an empty plate in front of him, and on her own she gathers food from the spread before them. The food is freshly made, has a perfect rich oiliness, cut through with chunks of strong garlic, sharp coriander, and chopped cashews. They eat quietly. They pass dishes between each other naturally, her reach across his plate is so familiar. Kala sneaks glances at him as he eats and smiles around her spoon.

When he can’t stomach any more, Wolfgang collapses against the back of his chair, closes his eyes and breathes deep. Kala gets up and moves about behind him while he rests. She touches his shoulder, coaxes him out of his chair with her bony hands on each of his shoulders. The couch creaks beneath their combined weight, but does not fold. The fabric is worn smooth, and Kala’s legs, draped over his own, are a welcome warmth, shielding him from the cascade of chilled air from the air conditioner above. Kala pulls a remote from some crevice in the couch. A tinny dance tune starts to play. 

“This movie was very popular when I was a girl,” she says as the movie’s title slides onto the screen across from them. “It’s about a boy, he’s a spy, and he trains a girl to be a spy and of course he falls in love with her, and then--”

“Should we pause the movie so I can hear what will happen next?” 

“If you want to watch the movie, I am happy to,” she says, “I thought we might end up busy with other things.” She cups the back of his neck, and her thumb strokes just behind his ear.

“You wanted to have a normal date.”

“This is normal.” 

He says, “Okay,” and turns to kiss her.

*

Wolfgang wakes the next morning to heavy, clambering footsteps. An abbreviated Bollywood tune plays on loop. His eyes slit open to an unfamiliar ceiling. Where is he? He leaps up from his seat. Where  _ is _ he?

“Wolfgang.” He turns, and it’s Kala, blinking up at him. Her face is scrunched in sleepy confusion before the heavy footsteps begin again. “My father!” she whispers. “Get out! Go quickly.”

Luckily for both of them, Wolfgang is  _ very _ good at evading sleep-addled fathers, and he slips out of the break room, past the quiet restaurant, and onto the street without notice. 

In a cab a few minutes later, he receives a whatsapp message:  _ Tmrws not good. Day after. See u xoxo _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> y'all can thank gear65 on tumblr for motivating me to get this chapter up. thank u for bearing with me!


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHAT UP I GOT ANOTHER CHAPTER FOR YOU

They continue like this for some time: Kala stays out too late with Wolfgang one night, and a few mornings later Wolfgang barely escapes colliding with her father. 

They’re out one night, lounging on a park bench, when Kala says, “You know, if you met my parents properly, your morning escape wouldn’t have such high stakes every week.” Kala is leaning against Wolfgang, pushed nearly into his lap due to the mid-bench armrest, so she must feel how he stiffens. She shifts to look at him. “You don’t want to?”

“I’m not very good with--” He gestures vaguely. “People.” 

“Ha! You got me to invite you on a honeymoon in less than a week.”

“That’s different. I’m good at flirting.”

“Oh god, don’t flirt with my parents,” she says, laughing. 

“What if it’s all I know how to do?” he says gravely.

“Actually that would work on my friends. Oh! My friends do very much want to meet you.” 

“You want me to flirt with your friends?”

“Bring Felix along too.” She pulls out her phone. “Next Sunday afternoon?” she asks, already typing away. Resigned, Wolfgang closes his eyes while she finalizes the details. Kala touches his hand. “You don’t have to, you know.”

“We should do it. I haven’t talked to anyone but you or Felix for weeks.”

“And if you don’t practice your flirting skills you may very well lose them,” she adds. 

*

Eight days later, they spend one afternoon with Kala’s friends. It goes well. They like Wolfgang and Felix; Felix and Wolfgang like them. 

“That was fun,” Kala says. “We should not do it again.” 

Wolfgang agrees.

“Fuck you guys,” Felix says. “I’m whatsapping Laxmi right now.”

*

It’s October before Wolfgang meets Kala’s parents. After weeks of fretting, Kala reserves a table at a German restaurant in the expat-heavy part of town, so that they can fill a lot of the conversation with general discussion of the differences between Germany and India. “Everyone will have a lot to talk about,” Kala says, “and very little of it will be controversial.” 

At the restaurant, she smooths out Wolfgang’s shirt before her parents arrive and mumbles, “Thank god you’re not British.”

Her parents don’t necessarily approve, but they don’t disapprove. At the end, after the tepid handshakes and goodbyes, Kala smiles for four hours straight.

Kala’s mother adores films of all kinds, so Wolfgang curries her favor by sending her links to watch subtitled action movies for free. She lasts six weeks before she downloads another virus and they have to wipe her computer clean. She finds this quite impressive. Kala’s father just likes to serve Wolfgang dishes he’s never tried and surreptitiously watch his face as he eats them. Wolfgang learns to be more expressive, and is gratified by the smug look on Kala’s father’s face.

Wolfgang gets in the habit of picking Kala up from work. That is, he takes an auto to her building, waits until she comes out, and then takes another auto, this time with her. The second or third time he does this, he finds her talking to a man as she walks out of the building. Wolfgang sees how he looks at her and immediately knows: the man is in love with her. It’s scabbed over now, a muted pain on his face as Kala moves from his sphere into Wolfgang’s. Rajan says hello to Wolfgang and, having heard about him and Felix from Kala, he happily offers to take them to some of the new clubs in town. Kala and Wolfgang share a look of sadness and almost-regret. He does seem to be a very good man. 

On Rajan’s invitation, the three of them share a very awkward meal, exchange pleasant goodbyes, and wordlessly agree never to repeat the experience. Wolfgang does go out more, with Kala’s friends, as she starts to take him along on outings. Felix begins a messy fling with Laxmi. They all go to the beach together, see shows, try trendy new restaurants.

But mostly, mostly Kala and Wolfgang keep to themselves.

They settle into a kind of perfection, a far more sustainable perfection, going on their normal-people dates and sneaking around late at night. Wolfgang learns who Kala is when she’s bored, when she’s tired, when she’s feeling nothing special at all. They spend a lot of time lying on the floor, planning stupid, impossible futures in which they own 100-story buildings and can fly jets, futures in which they have to scavenge for food and cook over open fires. 

Kala spends much of this planning time fiddling with Wolfgang’s hands, running her fingers across his knuckles. Or, she sits across his lap, and he learns to braid her hair, his hands passing through her hair over and over until it’s smooth and untangled and woven loosely together. Once, she buys a cheap tube of henna, shaves half of his leg, and spends the duration of a movie drawing patterns on his thigh. He can barely sit still enough, but she’s terrible at it anyway.

They make love in the steady, quiet way of an old relationship, but in secret: in dark corners of Wolfgang’s hotel, on the couch in the dawn-lit hour before Kala’s father wakes up, hot and wet in the bathroom while Felix watches TV outside, and in Kala’s childhood bed with the mid-afternoon sun beating down on them, once. Kala lies still with her chest heaving, and, each time, Wolfgang places a kiss on her right knee, bent back. He kisses her mouth and neck and he slides his fingers between her legs, strokes her until she’s wet and wanting, and then rocks into her. Each time, she lets out the same shaky exhale, sometimes with a high moan, and he fights to keep his pace unchanged.

*

Eventually, Felix and Laxmi’s fling ends in an explosion of screenshots of whatsapp conversations sent back and forth across Kala’s friend group, and Felix decides to go back to Berlin. Wolfgang is tense when he tells Kala about it, knowing it would be a convenient time for him to leave too.

She says, “You’d be wasting money staying in a hotel on your own.”

“Oh,” he says. 

“I know a good property agent if you want to rent a flat,” she says, and he lets out a breath he’d been holding.

He shoots her a sideways glance. “I don’t know if I could afford the rent alone.”

She laughs. “If you are trying to ask me something, you should actually ask it.”

“Should we live together?”

“My parents will hate it,” she says, and pulls out her laptop to start looking through listings.

For months, they struggled to string a few hours together during which they could be alone, and suddenly they sign a lease and they have clean white sheets and a door that they can lock behind them. 

They’re insufferable to be around those first weeks; every evening, at dinner, at the movies, in the park, Kala leans over to murmur little secrets beginning with, “I’ve been thinking...” or “Remember when we…” and ending with something lewd for the pleasure of watching Wolfgang’s face burn red. They turn in early every night and stumble out of their flat exhausted and improbably cheerful every morning.

Then, when this stage passes, when they’re no longer love-drunk and touch-starved, they fight, and often. Silly fights, usually. A good deal of them are prompted by the passive aggressive comments Kala’s parents make about her unexpected departure. Kala and Wolfgang yell, and once the yelling is finished, Kala forces Wolfgang to stay put and talk about why they fought, and how they can resolve the issue. Wolfgang wonders if this is a normal-people thing.

He gets a job at a German international school. They give him lesson objectives for a German language class, and he runs conversation-based activities for a few different sets of kids on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. In the afternoons, he coaches the wrestling team, which is really just an exercise in keeping the kids from tearing each other up. 

He likes the kids well enough, even if they are rich little brats. In class, they sit enraptured before him, their wide eyes somewhere between disbelieving and admiring as he tells them about a tattoo shop in Berlin that will give you your first tattoo free or about the time he got into a fistfight outside the parliament building. They’re so young and eager, and here he is, holding their attention and adoration on accident. He doesn’t think he’s very good at teaching, but he hopes he’s at least not causing any harm.

Two months after he’s started work, Kala says, very seriously, “You have a job now.”

His mouth pulls up into a half-grin. They’re in the kitchen, both crowded between the narrow counters so Wolfgang can put the dishes away as Kala washes them. He says, “Yes, I do.”

“So you’re not going to kill anymore,” she says, and shuts off the sink.

He looks at her. “What?”

“You have a salary.” Her hand is firm on the faucet, but her lip trembles. “You don’t need to kill ever again.”

“You think I was killing people for money?” he asks, his lips pulling back. 

He had almost believed they would be able to drop this topic when he left Europe, but he hadn’t realized she’d thought of him like  _ this _ . That she still thinks of him like this, evidently. Very carefully, he places the glass in his hands on the counter. He takes a deep breath, and turns to step past her.

She catches his wrist. “I want to talk about this,” she says, squeezing tight. He feels like a boy again, when he would stand still with his wrist caught, unmoving in his father’s grasp, as he awaited the beating at the end of a spitting diatribe. It’s-- he hasn’t felt this way in a long time. 

That’s not what this is, he knows. He can speak, here, so he says, “No.”

“Wolfgang!” she hisses, and she releases his wrist, starts to raise her hand and he sees it coming and he jerks out of the kitchen, arms up. She says, “Wolfgang? What are--” but he leaves the room before he hears the end of it. He shuts himself in the bathroom and calls Felix.

“Hallo, hallo, hallo,” Felix says. He sounds happy and stupid, probably about three beers in.

“Talk to me.”

“Oookay. Uhh sooooo-- oh! Last week I was at Finn’s. There was this group of Portuguese businessmen,” he begins. Wolfgang listens to him rattle off an old story, refitted with new characters and a new hot girl. The hot girl is always foreign now, which is the first new development in Felix’s bar stories in years. Wolfgang sits and listens until the roaring in his ears subsides. 

“Thanks,” he says.

“Any time, bro.”

By the time they hang up, Kala has gone to bed. Wolfgang thinks about leaving, finding a motel, finding a bus or a train and just  _ going _ . 

He sleeps on the couch.

*

In the morning, Wolfgang doesn’t start the kettle for Kala as he usually does. Kala walks past the empty stove and, instead of pulling together a random assortment of breakfast foods, she shuts herself in the bathroom. He sits at the kitchen table, eating dry toast, until it becomes clear she won’t finish in time for him to shower before work. He leaves without speaking to her.

The second morning this happens, one of the trouble kids in Wolfgang’s favorite class, Anand, asks, “Did your girlfriend dump you?”

“Ich verstehe nicht,” he says.

“Umm… Hat Ihre girlfriend Sie hassen?”

Wolfgang laughs. “Anfangen ist leicht, beharren eine Kunst.”

“Okay, now  _ ich  _ verstehe nicht,” Anand says.

“Look it up,” Wolfgang says.

*

Wolfgang puts the kettle on for Kala in the morning after a week of not speaking. Kala’s mother has a surgery coming up in two days-- her knee has been bothering her for years. Kala will need his support. 

He emerges from the bathroom later, and he finds Kala at the stove, frying tomatoes, two eggs, and one slice of bread in the same large pan. He comes to sit at the table immediately, not bothering to get properly dressed first, and Kala talks quietly about the office gossip Wolfgang missed out on while they weren't speaking. 

Wolfgang takes a vacation day so he can go with Kala to the hospital on the day of the surgery. He’s downloaded the Terminator movies on her mother’s iPad. Wolfgang shows her how to access the movies, and she puts her hand on Wolfgang’s jaw affectionately, as she sometimes does, to say thank you. Wolfgang puts his hand over hers.

Kala visits her mother for long hours each day afterward, ensuring her mother gets proper bed rest and, perhaps coincidentally, that Kala and Wolfgang don’t have to speak to each other one-on-one for longer than ten minutes. Wolfgang goes with her once or twice with new movies for her mother’s iPad. Both times, her mother touches him gently, thanks him.

“I think I understand,” he says in the dark one night. They are in bed, not touching, like the first anxious night they shared a room. He had thought she had already fallen asleep, but she says,

“What do you understand?”

He swallows. “Why you don’t understand my decisions. From before.”

She turns, lays a hand on his chest. “Tell me what I have missed.”

“It’s not what you missed. It’s what I missed.” He lays his hand over hers. “Your family is so gentle.” 

“My family was not so gentle during exams,” she says.

That’s not right. He doesn’t know how to talk about this so that she’ll understand, he has never tried to talk about this with anyone who didn’t already know. He tries, “Have you ever feared that, at the end of the day, you would no longer exist? Have you known threats like this?”

“Once or twice,” she says, but does not expand, waiting.

“That is all I had ever known. My-- Every day. Every day I feared that.” He frowns, trying to iron the thoughts in his head into coherent sentences. “I didn’t know what it was not to fear. I never realized that this-- this fear did not have to-- be. I only realized that I could simply leave it-- remove myself from it-- when I was with you. You brought me to an old French cottage and no one could see me but you. I had never not feared. And then…” He presses his lips together. And then.

“Oh,” she breathes. “Do you fear it now?”

“No. It’s-- When--” He sighs. “It just-- it never had anything to do with money. Money is nothing. It’s this,” he says, threading his fingers between hers. He knows he’s not making himself clear enough, but all he can say is, “It’s this.”

She draws herself up, presses her forehead to his. “I’m sorry.”

“No, you don’t need to,” he says. 

She disentangles her hand to brush a thumb over his temple and presses a soft kiss to his lips. “I love you,” she says.

“Oh.” He slides his hand along her back, runs his fingers through her hair, holds the back of her neck in his hand. “I think so.”

She grins. “Oh, really, you think so?”

“I love you,” he says. “Yes?”

“Yes.”

“Good,” he says, and surges up to kiss her. She laughs into his mouth. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> probably only two chapters left after this. thanks for reading! comments, as always, are very much appreciated!!


	16. Chapter 16

“Do you like it here?”

They’re in the midst of a cluster of food carts, early in the morning before Kala has to go to work. Milling about are men and women in clean-pressed suits, old work shirts, and polo-khaki combos, holding plates of food close to their faces. Kala holds two small cups of chai in her hands and worries at her lip.

“Yes. Not as good as your father’s, but very good,” Wolfgang says, grabbing another pinch of poha to drop into his mouth. “Also, why doesn’t our chai at home taste like that?”

“I mean here, in Mumbai.”

“Huh? Of course,” he says. He tips his head back to drop rice flakes and peanuts on his tongue, and some rolls down his cheek. Over a year and he’s still terrible at eating rice dishes with his hands.

“But it’s so loud,” she says. “And traffic is terrible.” Out on the street, cars and autos and motorbikes drift as normal, honking as they cut into slow-moving traffic, no louder nor slower than usual.

“It’s a big city, can’t be helped,” he says.

She sighs, takes a brooding sip of her chai. 

*

At the international market that weekend, Kala stares listlessly at the wall of snacks Wolfgang is investigating. He was hoping to find hanuta wafers, but no store so far has had them stocked.

“They don’t have anything here,” Kala says.

Wolfgang looks at her, bewildered. The halls are lined with store after store, each display filled beyond capacity with toys or food or beauty products from around the world; food servers lounge in stalls, frying up hot food and watching each passerby with lazy interest; and down the hall are shelves laden with fragrant fruit. He asks, “What?”

“This is the third shop that doesn’t have it.”

“It doesn’t matter. Let’s get some mangoes before we go.”

“The shop owners stare at you.”

“I don’t know,” he says, looking around. “They seem to be used to foreigners.”

“These ones are, but the others always stare.”

“Well, yes.”

“Isn’t it tiring?”

“No.”

“Fine. Let’s get mangoes,” she says, and stalks off without waiting for him.

He catches up to her as she’s picking through an eager vendor’s mangoes, looking for two ripe ones and two that will ripen after sitting on the counter for a day or two. They’re near an entrance now, and Wolfgang has to press up behind her to make space for people to pass as they come in and out.

“And there are all these people all the time. Berlin isn’t like that. Doesn’t that bother you?”

“What? No? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” She puts down the mango she was looking at and pays for the two ripe mangoes. “Let’s go. Only, we can’t take the train because it’s rush hour and it will be packed.”

“There are autos around.”

“But it’s so hot out.”

“It’s hot on the trains too.”

“Exactly!”

“We can call an Uber? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Let’s get an auto.” She stalks off to the main street, plastic bag swinging from her clenched fist. Wolfgang follows behind her with an awed horror, feeling like a rabbit following a bear. 

“Kala?” he ventures, when they are folded into the auto and inching through rush hour traffic.

“There are cows,” she grumbles.

“You love the cows.” 

She looks out the window, shoulders raised. He fidgets. He’d complained about the cows once before and she’d said, “But look at their long lashes and sad, round eyes.” He knows she loves the crowded markets too, doesn’t mind dodging through packs of strangers, and, she likes the wet afternoon heat because it allows her the relief of hot chai at home. 

“Kala?” he ventures.

She grunts a response.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes.”

“Did something happen?”

“No.”

The last time she was this upset was after an infuriatingly tepid response to a research proposal she’d spent weeks on. She’d come home frowning and slamming cupboards. “Come here,” she’d said to Wolfgang, and she’d buried her face in his shoulder and mumbled the story into his t-shirt. He made her some tea. After draining it and staring morosely into the bottom of her cup, she took a nap. She came out afterwards, half-smiling, saying, “Okay, here’s my plan.” She only revisited her anger late at night, ranting in bed until Wolfgang took her mind elsewhere. 

The last time Wolfgang was upset, always aimlessly so, not like Kala, he’d picked a fight. He knew that he was acting stupid and that he’d keep acting stupid, so he went up to the roof to smoke it out. Kala, angry then too, dragged her feet up the stairs and sat next to him without looking at him, waiting until she was calm enough to speak to him. The sun fell, and some of the heat retreated with it. A woman came up to collect the laundry she’d left hanging. To Kala, Wolfgang said, “Sorry.” Kala asked quiet, simple questions, managed to drag out of him what he hadn’t even known was upsetting him.

He says, “Okay,” then reaches forward to pay the driver and pulls Kala out of the auto.

“Wolfgang, what are you--”

“I need to get something.” They walk a few blocks until Wolfgang spots a convenience store. He zips through the aisles, Kala walking quickly behind him. He asks, “Beer or wine?”

“We could have gotten that at Crawford,” she says swinging her bag of mangoes at him.

“Rum would be good with those,” he says and goes up to the counter to request a bottle. He asks Kala as they exit the store, “We’re close to the garden park right?”

“Yes, we can keep following this street.” He starts walking. She dodges through the crowd and calls after him, “But it’s almost sundown. We’ll get so many bug bites!”

He keeps walking, she grabs his hand at some point, and he leads her to the park grounds. He stops at the base of the first big tree they come upon and lays his jacket on the ground for her to sit on. “Come on,” he says, and sits next to it.

She sits. “What are you doing?”

“Give me a mango,” he says, digging through his pockets.

“Are you going to peel it with your pocket knife?”

“Yes.” He holds it up.

“ _ Tch _ , at least let me do it. You take off too much fruit.” She pulls a mango out of her plastic bag. “Wipe the blade and pour the liquor over it. I don’t remember what you last used that for.” He cracks open the bottle top and sloshes rum over the blade. He holds both out to Kala. She takes his knife, declines to take the rum, explaining “I am not going to drink that until I have something to follow it.” She holds the knife gingerly between her fingers as she turns the mango about.

“What is wrong?” he asks.

“Aside from this sudden detour?”

“You know.”

She purses her lips. The blade has not been sharpened, and it takes a bit of force for her to puncture the mango’s skin.

She asks, “If you could change anything about Mumbai, what would it be?”

He opens his mouth. Closes it. “Huh,” he says. “More cold rainfall.”

“Hm,” she says, with vague interest. “I got a job offer.”

“Oh. An upsetting one?”

“No, it’s a fantastic offer.” She saws the knife back and forth to keep it sliding along the skin. When the mango is half skinned, she starts slicing through the fruit. One final slice down the seed, then she says, “Hand me the rum.”

He takes a swig himself, hisses through the cleansing burn in his throat. “It’s cheap,” he warns.

She puts the bottle to her lips, tosses some back, and promptly sucks a cube of mango off of the seed. She hands both to Wolfgang and takes the other mango out of her bag. He tries to arrange his mango and the rum in his hands so that he can repeat what she did, but she’s puncturing the next mango and speaking quickly now. “They offered me my own lab. They’re interested in the same kind of pharmacology as I am. Few constraints”

“So a good opportunity?” he asks.

“Yes.”

“You’re hesitating because you don’t want to leave Rajan’s company?”

“No.” She tugs viciously at the knife.

“Because of... your work friends?”

She scoffs.

“Will they pay you less?”

“No. It’s a raise.”

“Will you make me guess every part of the job?”

She wrests the rum back from Wolfgang. “It’s in Canada.” 

_ Oh _ , Wolfgang thinks, watching Kala swig unhappily from the bottle. “You want to take it?”

“I don’t know,” she says. He puts his hand on her hand, which is sticky with mango juice and trembling slightly. She says, “I want to go, I think.”

“How long do you have to decide?” 

“They gave me two weeks. Five days left, now.”

“You should speak to your parents.”

“Tomorrow. You’ll come with me?”

“Yes,” he says.

*

They sit in the outdoor area in the back of Kala’s restaurant, with lush greenery all around and nothing but the distant hum of traffic. It’s a very late dinner, coming after the restaurant has closed and all the waitstaff have left. Kala has been tense all night, leading her mother to look shiftily between them every few minutes. Kala’s father, on the other hand, has only grown more genial and gracious, smoothly refilling every glass, serving food from every dish, and keeping a steady thread of conversation going. 

“Shall I clear the dishes?” he asks, as the meal draws to its close.

Kala plants her hands on the table. “We’re moving to Canada!” she blurts in a hoarse shout. Everyone is quiet, and Wolfgang hides his face in his cup.

“Excuse me?” Kala’s mother says, her voice perfectly calm and measured.

“Wolfgang, help me clear these dishes,” Kala’s father says.

“Of course,” he mumbles. He clatters plates and glasses together, eager to have a task to occupy his hands and an excuse to escape this conversation. He carts the dishes into the kitchen, and Kala’s father follows soon after. They go to the sink, a familiar position, Wolfgang washing and Kala’s father drying and putting dishes away. 

“Did you have anything to do with it?” he asks.

Wolfgang looks resolutely down at the dishwater. He says, “No, sir.”

“I thought not.” He rests a hand on Wolfgang’s forearm. “Want a cigarette?”

“Yes,” Wolfgang says desperately.

They go out to the sidewalk. Kala’s father pulls a crushed pack of cigarettes from his pocket. He leans back against the building to light the first cigarette, passes the cigarette to Wolfgang and moves to light his own. 

“It was always going to happen,” Kala’s father says, mumbling around the cigarette balanced in his mouth. 

“What was?”

His hands come up around his round stomach. “She was in such awe when we moved to Mumbai. And when we visited her cousins in London and in New York. Always befriended the new students and the foreigners in her class. Always seeking things different from what she already knows.”

“Oh,” he says. 

“Do you think she will want to seek someone different from you?” he asks plainly, looking not at Wolfgang, but at the lazy stream of pedestrians trickling by. He says it without malice, but Wolfgang, remembering Rajan, feels the hint of accusation. 

“I don’t know what she will want, but I know what I won’t.”

Kala’s father laughs and claps Wolfgang on the shoulder. “Have you ever been to Canada?”

“No.”

“You’ll like it. Everybody likes it,” he says. He’s smiling, and he sounds fulfilled, but his eyes are downcast, his shoulders drawn in.


	17. Chapter 17

She takes the offer. She’s ebullient, flitting about their flat with a radiant smile, for an hour. Then she realizes, “I need to get a work visa,” and “You’ll have to come on a dependent visa,” and “There’s so much to pack,” and “I need to resign tomorrow,” and, “Oh god, Wolfgang, I didn’t even ask you if you want to go.”

“I’ll go where you go,” he says. “Let’s look up a moving company, hm?”

They buy tickets. They’re leaving in two months. They don’t get a full night’s sleep for the next four.

Wolfgang has to work extra hours so the school will let him out of the contract two weeks before the semester ends, and Kala spends late nights at work finishing her outstanding projects or training others to finish them for her.

Felix comes to visit, reasoning this will be his last chance to visit Mumbai without having to pay for lodging. Between the work, the packing, and the paperwork, Wolfgang only sees him when he stumbles into the bathroom in the morning and sees Felix sprawled on the couch, and only speaks to him to be updated on what Laxmi is up to and which bars have the most beautiful girls.

At some point, Wolfgang finds Felix standing at the door with his backpack packed, saying he’s going to visit New Delhi while he’s here. “I’ll visit you in Canada,” he says and swings out the door.

Kala rolls her eyes. “He’s going with Laxmi on her business trip.” Wolfgang laughs, and they settle back into their private frenzy of work.

They realize quickly that the paperwork would be much easier if they were married, so, sleepless and stressed, they research the legal process for foreigners who want to marry citizens in Mumbai, and again realize quickly that this would take time. They decide Wolfgang will come into Canada as a tourist and they will figure out the marriage paperwork later.

Every trip to the grocery store is uselessly stressful: Kala wants oreos to eat at home, should they get the small or the big box? If Wolfgang buys spinach, will they have time to cook it before it goes bad? If they’re out of sugar, should they replace the box or endure a few weeks of bitter tea?

They arrive to a dinner with her parents with red-rimmed eyes and pale faces, and then Kala’s mother and father start coming over frequently. They brings ingredients to cook simple meals in their kitchen, help them give their belongings away, urge them to sleep, and then show themselves out.

Wolfgang’s students throw him a surprise goodbye party. His difficult kid, Anand, says with exaggerated horror, “You were going to leave without giving us a free period to eat and chat?” and presents Wolfgang with a card signed by everyone in class and a T-shirt that says, very simply, “MUMBAI.” Wolfgang smiles till his cheeks hurt and speaks rapidly in German so only his best students will understand how grateful he is. Anand shakes his head like he knows anyway.

The moving company comes and starts putting away their belongings. Kala and Wolfgang both make a series of impulse decisions on things to keep and throw away, and go back on those decisions a few times each. The moving men are not impressed. Kala’s mother sends Kala an omniscient text: “When in doubt, throw it away.” So they do.

Suddenly, they’re standing in an empty flat, watching the landlord check over the appliances and paint, waiting to get their deposit back. Wolfgang hears Kala’s breath catch in her throat. He grabs her hand. The landlord hands Kala the check, and she says, “Thank you,” with tears in her eyes. The landlord doesn’t hide his befuddlement.

They spend their last week at Kala’s parents home. Wolfgang has finished work, and Kala too. Wolfgang spends his days shadowing the cooks in the kitchen, hoping to figure out why his butter chicken just tastes like he smashed a tomato over a cut of chicken and splashed cream on top. Kala helps her mother repair a leak in the roof, and helps her father reseal the gas lines.

Kala disappears for long stretches of time with one parent or another, a friend or coworker, and once with Rajan. She has a lot to say goodbye to. At night, Kala lies in her childhood bed, Wolfgang on the break room couch, and they send each other reassurances over whatsapp until they fall into exhausted slumbers.

The night before their flight, Kala creeps downstairs, intending just to lie with Wolfgang for a while, and instead she begins pacing around the restaurant, muttering things like, “This was the right decision,” and, “I can always change my mind,” and “Why did I do this,” and “I’ve never even been to Canada.” Kala’s father plods down the stairs, his weight landing heavily with each step.

“Kala, Kala, Kala Kala kala kalakalakalakala,” he says, pulling her outside. Kala’s mother comes down soon after, her robe tied firmly around her waist, her expression determinedly motherly. At the doorway outside, she looks at Wolfgang with a sharp, _Are you coming or no?,_ and he scrambles after her. They talk, air their anxieties, quell them, air new anxieties, quell them. In the end, they settle on a conclusion: it’s scary, but they’ll deal with it. Kala lets go of her father’s hand and takes Wolfgang’s, and, refusing to spare a hand for the tears gathering in her eyes, she takes her mother’s hand as well.

Her mother rolls her eyes. “You’re emotional because you’ve had no sleep,” she says warmly. “Let’s go inside.”

Kala, Wolfgang, and Kala’s parents huddle sleepily around hot cups of chai in the corner of the restaurant late the next morning. The sun flares in, pale yellow and blindingly bright on the silver table tops, and they don’t speak for a long time. This becomes Wolfgang’s favorite memory of Kala’s family.

Before they go to the airport, literally dozens of people come to see them off. In addition to the regular flow of customers, the restaurant is bustling with Kala’s cousins, aunts and uncles, second nieces and nephews, work friends and school friends. Kala keeps stopping to whisper about them in Wolfgang’s ear, “He peed his pants until grade 8,” and, “She was my first kiss, the one I told you about, under the tree,” and, “They have not learned to discipline their child,” and other gossipy secrets until he’s lost track of who’s who and what’s what.

Friends start filtering out in the late afternoon. As they head out, they hug Kala, wish her luck, share their hopes for the future. She gets misty-eyed on many occasions, but holds out, until it’s time for them to go to the airport and all her family gathers at the door to see her off. She’s passed from embrace to embrace, the affection transferring to Wolfgang as he trails behind in her wake.

She’s crying steadily by the time they’re in the Uber, grasping at Wolfgang’s hand and wrist with both hands.

*

Six hours later and forty thousand feet above the ground, Kala opens her eyes suddenly. “Wolfgang,” she says. “Did we consider getting _married_?”

He thinks back, past the goodbyes and the packing and the paperwork. Surely he’d remember something like th-- “Oh. For the visa. We did.”

“Oh my god,” she says, laughing a bit too loud for their being in the middle of a sixteen hour flight. “That would have been the least romantic wedding that’s ever occurred.”

He laughs too. “We would have gone and done it in our sweaty t-shirts.”

As the laughter dies down, before the moment ends, he says quickly, aiming for casual, “I’d still do it.”

He tries not to look at the _really?_ expression on her face until he sees it soften. She says, “Ask me properly after we’ve settled.” She leans back in her seat. “But no sweaty t-shirts.”

***

They set up in a quiet town in a new country, foreigners the both of them. They move into an old brick house house on a street lined with huge, leafy trees. When the wind blows through, the house whistles and moans and the trees chatter at the windows. They have two floors to themselves, though they spend most of their time in the bedroom or in the kitchen, or sitting in the grass in the backyard until their legs are soaked through and numb with cold. The grocery store is a short block away, and a Hindu temple is several miles out. Kala’s mother visits and silently, begrudgingly approves.

Kala is thrilled by her new job, less than thrilled by some of her coworkers, but she gets to hire her own lab assistants, and she fills her lab with international undergrad and grad students from the local university. She’d never been a mentor to anyone before this, but she likes that it affords her a degree of distance she couldn’t get with peers.

They don’t go out often, but it’s a small enough town that they soon meet all their neighbors, all of them friendly, and a few of them strange enough to hold Kala and Wolfgang’s attention and build a friendship. A neighborhood cat worms its way into their home, where Kala treats it with disinterest and Wolfgang gets in over his head caring for it.

He gets an under the table job as a line cook, learns more, becomes a sous chef, and begins to frequent farmers markets to find fresh ingredients for dishes to make at home. He gets to know the patrons and the vendors and, slowly, they get to know him too. He makes simple, hearty dishes at home and brings half-full bottles of wine and champagne from the restaurant to pair them with.

They get married soon. Just at city hall, more for the visa than anything else, so Wolfgang can work legally. It’s a small ceremony, just one witness, one of Kala’s lab assistants, and afterward they feel as if they’ve gotten away with something. She holds his face when they make love. They’ll hold a ceremony for Kala’s family, eventually, but for now, they’re happy to spend quiet nights in their bedroom, speaking softly and listening to the house sigh in the wind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is it!! thank you so much for reading! i'm so grateful to everyone who read and especially to those who have commented or messaged me on tumblr. i may not reply on ao3, but each comment still means so much. i hope u enjoyed.  
> (p.s. i'm sorry if the chapters come across haphazard or inconsistent i have learned my lesson abt posting longfic oh boy)


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